A better way to level?

[TheMaskedBowler]

Hi all. I just thought I'd pop in for a couple quick questions. Later I may share my horrible first experiences with the first five members of my squad, but for now, I just have a question. I'm new, and the forums aren't quite working correctly for me, so forgive me if this has been posted before.

What factors are taken into consideration when combat XP is given at the end of a mission?

My Green recon jock currently receives about 20 -30 Pilot and Other XPs at the end of a battle, but only about 5-11 Combat XPs. I know you gain XPs for "all sorts of skill checks, suc-cessful piloting skill checks granting movement experience points." Is it therefore in my interests to make battles drag on for as long as possible?

This meager amount of XP, as you may have guessed, makes leveling up very, very tedious. He's already 57/0 in the arena (with about 20 kills, too...heh) --surely it's not normal to get this little combat XP per match, especially when the AI manages to throw two titans in most of the time?

[Thorgrim]

Hi, and welcome.

Combat XP is basically awarded when you hit any active opposing titan. It depends on the class of weapon (weight/slots) you fire (lighter weapons give less XPs, heavier ones more), and the difference between your target to hit number and what you rolled - the harder the shot, the more XPs you'll get. This is all thoroughly explained in the Guide, in a section called Experience.
Link: tm.asp?m=505209

You mean XPs or DPs? After a battle you get XPs according to whatever skill checks you made, which are then converted to DPs (on a 15:1 basis, explained in the Guide, HQ section) so you can allocate them in the HQ to develop your jocks. Dragging battles will only award you more XPs if you make more skill checks, like crossing rivers, running through woods, repairing with the dcs, etc, it won't create more enemies to fire at [;)]

I usually get 1000+ XPs a battle, some times ~800 at lower levels. You can monitor the XP gains with the squad status screen, check what is going on. Does this happen with all members of the squad?
You can control the number of AI titans during the setup of the map, btw.

[TheMaskedBowler]

You mean XPs or DPs?
- I meant XPs. Although this whole DP/XP conversion thing makes a lot more sense. I was wondering why the battle report would show 150 Xp but why I'd only end up wih 10.

Does this happen with all members of the squad?
- Well, I only have one member in my squad. I tend to always, without exception, lose battles with more than two people on my team.

I think part of the reason why I get so few XPs is because my jock pilots a recon titan armed with two chainsaws and a machine gun. My first FIVE dead pilots learned the hard way that using anything but the big-damage weapons just gets them killed. The battles seem to always drag on, and on, and even more on, otherwise.

I made special squads just to see what it's like with highly skilled pilots who can call shots and whatnot. Bleh. It's not really worth it, to me. Sure, they get an extra 20% or so more than my guy on their hit percentages, but things still seem to play out the same. I hit in a lot of random locations and spread out my damage while the AI always seems to get lucky and blow off a leg, destroy a critical torso piece, or land that lucky headshot.


Thanks for the guide, though. I'm going to take a look at it.

[Burzmali]

Sounds to me like you need to teach your jocks a little better firing disicpline, i.e. don't fire on the run and wait until an enemy stops to fire. I still have to retrain myself not to try for the fancy shots when ever I start a new game.

[Thorgrim]

You should have at least 2 jocks in your squad. The first will be the leader, if you increase his leadership before recruting other members they'll be slightly better, the second the manager, if you increase his business skill before buying titans you'll save some money. A third one will be your mechanic, which will make repairs cheaper if you increase his damage control skill (you can recruit him only after the first battle if you wish). This is explained in detail in the guide.

Usually the first few battles of a squad will end up in close combat, due to the lower skills, so starting with CC titans is not a bad idea. You can drive your opponents to the ground by charging them (make sure you have a good CC skill), they'll be a lot easier to hit.

If you make a Champion special squad I think you'll notice the difference. Notice the AI will also use called shots on you. From level 4 up, it'll act much smarter. Try playing Champion vs Rookie AI, so you can get a feel for called shots, BRGs to knock them down, NBs to make them dizzy, etc.

Once you get the hang of it, I'm sure you'll be losing your sleep over this [:D]

[asmith094]

Losing sleep? Are you kidding, Iceman? I seem to recall many nights where I could hardly remember what sleep was, let alone lose it.

[Aensland]

Tilting the tonnage in your favour seems absolutely necessary to get a starting Rookie Squad off the ground, otherwise you'll just keep losing people each battle. After being able to afford Light Titans and getting critical skills past 50% things start to look up. I managed to take down 1 assault titan (rookie, 200 tons) with my squad of 3 light titans and 1 recon, but it was absolutely brutal... fighting better ranked AI in smaller titans seems to give more exp.

I'm going to wait until my people are heroes before starting the campaign [:D]

[Thorgrim]

You *should* have your skills above 50% when you build your squad, at least the main skills. It's very much possible, if you use race and gender carefuly, and allocate your points correctly. You don't really need to change balance when you get the hang of the combat system - the tutorial helps a little.
Don't wait to start the campaigns, there are a few, made to build your squad from rookie to veteran or so. Just check the difficulty level of the maps in the campaign selector. Playing the rookie campaign later with a veteran squad will not be as fun.

[Aensland]

I guess I should start, right now I've got my 4-person team up to regular (the last guy still a novice). I noticed that a good leader with high leadership can recruit rookies with better than basic skills, so I'm saving recruiting the last 4 until I my leader is much better. Oh and I forgot that currently his leadership isn't enough to hire up to 8 anyway [:'(] I'll probably treat them like 2 teams of 4 each.
 
Running through water seems to be a quick way to gain piloting, although in the last battle one tripped so much a leg got ripped off  [:D]