The Hardest Mech Commander Mission: Operation 4 Mission 5, Part 2 of 2

This second part shows the fight with the four Catapults, and the mission's end. Note that there is a field of fuel tanks in the base on the right side of the map, where the Catapults are walking through; a Mech Commander could choose to detonate these tanks with an artillery strike, destroying all four Catapults. I chose not to do that because it usually renders all four Catapults non-salvageable, plus it also sacrifices one of the component warehouses that contain salvage. And of course, my pilots get less chances to improve their Gunnery skill.

The start of this video shows the four Catapults destroying the turrets and the turret control tower I had left behind; video time 0:26 shows the Turret Control Tower going down under a barrage of LRMs. I go about repairing both Firestorm's Mad Cat-A and Goblin's Masakari-J, then have my whole force meet the Catapults, adding my last Small Artillery Strike in to soften them up further.

As the mission is not over until every enemy Mech is destroyed, I get the chance to repair Firestorm one last time. Then everyone heads down to deal with the Jagermech straggler which had taken critical leg damage in my large Artillery Strike in the Part 1 video.

Video time 03:10 shows me screening through an impressive list of salvage: 10 out of the 17 Mechs that have already been destroyed, along with a huge stockpile of weapons.

Once the Jagermech is destroyed, the mission is successful. And I didn't even have to hurry my Mechs around or work very hard, thanks to the timing of my attacks on each group of enemy Mechs.

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• Mech
• Commander
• Gold
• Salvage
• Walkthrough
• Showcase
• Hard

[MrJohnny56789]

you know I just thought.. what if you planted Atlases with a mixture of gauss rifles and ER lasers and long range ACs? The light damage weapons with faster RoF are always there to increase the speed of scoring crits on exposed structure after the heavy guns take off the armor, but consider, if 1 atlas each was on either side of the ravine in the southwest, couldnt they down a lot of mechs by hitting their back armor?

[Carsomyr80]

@MrJohnny56789 They would, but most of those Mechs would be unsalvageable. You need mostly light weapons to increase the chances of salvage, yet have enough heavy-hitting weapons to open up holes in the armor. The trick is figuring out the exact ratio for each mission, to optimise your salvage.

[MrJohnny56789]

I dont have the manual. Im not sure if iI lost it or what, but I dont know what the skills like gun, pilot, sensor, and jump do.

Im fairly certain from thinking that gun would make aimed shots more accurate, not sure if it affects missiles too.

pilot, dunno, considering they usually just start standing still after a little movement towards the enemy.

jump, probably reduces chance of falling over after jumping.

sensor, no clue. every pilot with any sensor level shows the same things. tips?

[Carsomyr80]

@MrJohnny56789

1. Gunnery makes all weapon attacks more accurate. This includes missiles. Just like Battletech core rules.

2. Piloting makes it less likely for the Mech to fall down upon taking heavy damage. (Falling down leaves you a sitting duck and unable to fire for a while, as you'll have realised.)

3. Jump - your guess is correct.

4. Sensor skill decreases the drop in sensor radius when your Mech walks or runs.

Hope this helps.

[faezionhomo]

it's easier to destroy the catapults inside the small base to the east with the help of the gas tanks.

ps. this mc gold crap is super easy. in normal mech commander you definetily don't have 2 mad cats, a friggin masakari or an armada of jumping cougars at this point of the game! :P

[Carsomyr80]

@faezionhomo The reason for not doing it the "easy" way has been in the video Info section since I first put this up. Do read.

And in "Normal" Mech Commander, I can still salvage all this stuff. Salvage chance is unrelated to difficulty.

[Girthgimlet]

@MrZZtop86 Speaking of mine layers...i can't figure out what buttons to hit to get the mine layer to lay mines?...please help!

[MrZZtop86]

this mission was easy i used a minelayer and mined thier route and most of the mechs died without a fight

[MrJohnny56789]

@Carsomyr80 it does and thanks. The original BT tabletop wargame looks freaking great. I've been looking for something like that for a while.

[makakofalvi]

nice one; well it's not as hard as you say :) my version was with a vulure doing the hill-up scouting, nuked the bridge under the catapults (that was the hardest part) airstriked the cougars, and the lokis (since they start to run up if hey cant go through the woods, and easily run away), and there were some gas tanks at the entrance of the woods. Note the past tense. They blew up when the lokis came near, downed the Jagermechs easily, then went to take care of the immobile catapults. cake3rdtry

[Angelsy1]

This mission drove me nuts in the original MC, until I figured out that I should allow all enemy Mechs to approach up the road - don't blow up the bridge, don't harass enemies. I have all of my Mechs clog up the road at the bottom edge of the forest (where it creates a bottleneck) -they have to be facing the enemy- and the enemy mechs stop (w/o attacking) just within firing range... let them all group together, drop artillery first, and polish them off by firing from position. We hold this line!

[godspear87]

haha looking back at this... it looks so easy now... i remember having problem with this when i was 12 or something. played on normal.

How i did was with 2 Atlas-A upfront to take the hits with several heavy - W mechs at the rear to do as much damage possible. W -s running rear to take care of the catapults later on. Refit and timing of the airstrikes were critical for the success i must say in this round.