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[Darrian Wolffe]

NOTE: GUERILLA WARFARE CONTRACTS MEAN YOU CANNOT PURCHASE *ANY* WEAPONS/EQUIPMENT/AMMO ONCE YOU'RE ON THE PLANET, AND YOU'RE CONSIDERED TO BE "IN THE FIELD" FOR PURPOSES OF ALL REPAIRS/REFITS.   YOU'RE LIVING ONLY ON WHAT YOU CAN SALVAGE.






NOTE: GARRISON CONTRACTS MEAN YOU'RE CONSIDERED TO HAVE ACCESS TO "MAINTENANCE FACILITIES" NO MATTER HOW YOUR ACTIVE LANCES ARE ASSIGNED.


NOTE: DIVERSIONARY RAIDS HAVE NO POSITIVE "EARLY END CONDITION" THE WAY THAT OBJECTIVE OR EXTRACTION RAIDS DO. 

We have until 7 July (real life time) to choose a contract, or choose to wait another month to see the contract market refresh.
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My personal vote is for Operation THEMYSCIRA; it'll be a *hard* mission due to the enemy skill/equipment rating, but the rewards are extremely good, it's short, and the BLC percentage is quite good.  IMO, the only downside is a 20-week(ish) travel time.

[Ice]

My only issues with the last one are the travel times and the opfor

The cost to get there is enormous(yes I know it's covered) the return trip is the worry though
Say the next contract we take doesn't include expenses and we travel same distance. I'm assuming we are in the hole at that point. It does offer rather nice incentive though and could be a huge buffer

On another note an alternate choice would be dragon decent salvage rate, battle loss compensation, time frame but we won't make as much cash I feel

[Darrian Wolffe]

The cost to get there is enormous(yes I know it's covered) the return trip is the worry though
Say the next contract we take doesn't include expenses and we travel same distance. I'm assuming we are in the hole at that point. It does offer rather nice incentive though and could be a huge buffer

That cost is the cost of chartering transport.  If you didn't know a JumpShip/Dropship(s) and had to charter private transport to get there, that's how much it'd cost to rent the ships, pay the crews, and so forth.

Because you already own your own JumpShip/Dropship(s), the cost to the unit per jump is only 5,000 CB for fuel, plus having to pay 3 months worth of salaries/maintenance on the trip.  So something like a 3/4ths of a million C-bills in total (~100k for fuel, and ~225k per month in salary/overhead/maintenance expenses for 3 months). 

[Ice]

Thats not all that bad then

[Timberwolfd]

My evaluation of the missions:

RAGING JUSTICE - F rated opposition with 30% salvage won't exactly line our pockets. 60% BLC and 50% overhead are good. 99 days to station doesn't thrill me.

MINERVA - F rated opposition with 10% salvage, even further out than RAGING JUSTICE (1/2 a year to get there). 100% transport and BLC help.

ECHO - Regular opponent with C equipment and 90% salvage (!!!) with 50% overhead compensation and 100% transport. This one looks lucrative. Big catch is the House Command and 0% BLC. Relatively close by in Skye. But Guerilla...

DRAGON - Green opponent plus F equipment is okay, but not great. House command doesn't thrill either, but 60% BLC and 70% salvage are good. 60% transport and 50% overhead help.

SUPERCHARGE - (Character does not like) Green opponent with D equipment good, but 10% salvage is pathetic. None of the other terms improve things.

SADDLE - (Is this a prelude to Double Blind? One jump to Astrokaszy and Campolene on a ComStar contract...) Green enemy with D equipment but 0% salvage. Moderate transport and BLC terms don't rescue this turkey.

THEMYSCIRA - Veteran opponent with B equipment could hurt, but 90% salvage... High transport and medium BLC is good, half a year of transport doesn't thrill (though i may FINALLY get the Shadow Hawks heat sinks changed to doubles...). Only non-House command is a bonus.


Best Missions
1. THEMYSCIRA (High upside, we have custom mechs now to really push the odds)
2. DRAGON

Okay Missions
3. RAGING JUSTICE
4. SUPERCHARGE (At least it's short...)


Worst Missions
5. MINERVA
6. SADDLE (Long contract with no real upside)
7. ECHO (We can't really have the backlog of parts and spare mechs to make this work.)

[agustaaquila]

My preference is DRAGON then THEMYSCIRA, but it's a very slight preference for DRAGON.  I am fine with either one ultimately.

[Ice]

My preference is DRAGON then THEMYSCIRA, but it's a very slight preference for DRAGON.  I am fine with either one ultimately.

I am good with either of them I know the opfor on THEMYSCIRA is gonna be the big kicker but the salvage and cash may make it worth it

[Timberwolfd]

The richer salvage is what is driving me putting Themyscira over Dragon.

[Darrian Wolffe]

My main issue with DRAGON is that sure, we get 70% salvage...but it's going to be 70% of crap, because of F-rated OPFOR.  F-ratings are going to be a ton of Vedettes and Scorpions, and the majority of Mech units will be primitives, IndustrialMechs, and bugs.

Also, as a point of order, any BLC over 60% is vanishingly rare.  I think the BLC on MINERVA is only the second 100% rating I've ever seen.  20-30% is average, 40% or more is "good".

B-rated OPFOR on THEMYSCIRA is a big risk, yes.  But it also means that any salvage we take is going to be almost certainly immediately useful to us.  I would call THEMYSCIRA as the mission with the biggest upside by far; DRAGON is a safer bet, but with almost no "growth potential" beyond the base contract pay due to the poor rate of return we'll have on salvaged units vis a vis paying for our own repairs.  And I don't think the base contract pay is high enough to justify that. 

We can also sit around for another month and see if the October contracts are any better.

[Timberwolfd]

With so many upgraded mechs now, I don't think we need to cower in fear of a well equipped opponent. I won't endorse a Guerilla operation against such an opponent yet, given the repair challenges, but over a short contract we should be good.

Presumably we will be fighting 3 battles again (~ 1/month) for the contract, right Rob?
That gives us about a month between fights, so we should be good on repair time, but make sure we have enough spare parts...

[Ice]

my vote is for themyscira

[Darrian Wolffe]

I went ahead and did a test run into THEMYSCIRA (the MekHQ campaign wasn't saved, don't worry - we aren't committed to doing anything) to see what, exactly, a B-rated unit produced by MekHQ might look like at this time period.

It looks something like this:



This isn't going to be perfectly representative, but I don't think it's necessarily a Death Juggernaught, either.  The Mechs with red arrows are upgraded tech.  I'd bet a company of our guys against this force, as long as we're judicious with our heavier assets and are willing to either run away or pull some crazy shit if any Awesomes show up.

[Ad Hoc]

I say Themyscira or wait for next market.

If we take a contract with long travel time will parts ordered find us on way or not until we reach final destination?

[Ice]

flat 21 days for parts regardless where we are per rob

also i do want to point out 70 mil profit on the guerrilla wow (although we would be spending ahead of time for a lot of stuff and most likely to lose it)

also still a little scary but doable as long as we focus stuff down and get some hits on those fast movers

[Timberwolfd]

On the plus side, major lost tech variants like the AWS-9M won't resurface until 3049 (in theory). Regular Awesomes could still be a pain in the butt though.

Looking at the mechs listed, several of the upgraded units should not exist yet (lending some weight to that Awesome comment...).
HBK-5M 3046 (Added CASE, DHS)
CDA-3F 3052 (XL Engine, JJ, plus ER PPC)
HER-5S 3050 (Endo-Steel plus UAC-5 and MPLas)
LCT-3M 3050 (AMS, CASE, and FF)

Some should exist
PXH-3M 3037 (XL engine, Endo-Steel, AMS, and ER/Pulse lasers)


Aside from the Cicada (Ouch) and Phoenix Hawk (solid), most of the upgraded units don't gain a lot of firepower or combat effectiveness. The Locust still has paper armor. The Hunchback loses endurance going from 10 shots to 5, but gains heatsinks it can't really use and CASE that will be irrelevant in a couple of turns. The Hermes II can blow through its ammo faster and be more accurate with its now pulse laser, but nothing very threatening.

Honestly, the nastier vehicles bother me more. Pegasus is mean.