My second attempt at playing as a 'bad guy', I'm calling this one successful. I finished with just over 500,000 points, earning my first 'Elite' rating…although the game hasn't credited me with it, yet. Do you have to get to day 1201? I'm on day 1200.
Some oddities:
This is my first career or campaign in which I didn't get the MLRB rating to 1000, and the first in which I wasn't able to get to the final Black Widow mission (time ran out).
Although I maxed out the mech chassis category, I only completed one weight class (light).
I think I was only one chassis away from completing the mediums (Assassin-21, which I only saw three of the entire game, and never any for sale).
There were some 'common' mechs I never got six pieces of, such as one of the Warhammers (I finally got the Davion version on my last day of play), at least one Rifleman, at least one JagerMech. I didn't get a Steiner Archer until i was down to 37 days to play, etc.
It was almost certainly a mistake to go after as many flashpoints (priority missions) as possible. I still had at least four queued up at the end, and the time spent running from one to the next would've been better spent pursuing ordinary missions. Despite six of my pilots ending with all 10s for skills, and the other five with three 10s and a 9, my experience score was depressingly low, and going after common missions would've helped a lot with that. (This is also the first time I completely stopped using my personal pilot when she maxed out. In other career/campaigns I always brought her out of retirement for priority missions.)
As Mark Dey recommended, I should not have pursued alliances. The Taurian bonus weapon of super small lasers was quite helpful, and the Combine's heat negation systems moderately so, but Liao had nothing useful to me in the way of weapons. I did buy a couple of mech parts from them, but really not worth the effort. Alliances do help your final score, with both the maximum and minimum relationship values giving bonus points, whereas staying near the middle for everybody minimizes that bonus. The reason I did pursue alliances was that I was trying to pick up some achievements, which was successful — five if I get credited with the elite finish, including three new alliances.
Once I got the maximum chassis score I should've shifted my contract negotiations away from mech parts and toward money. I'm embarrassed to say how low my money score ended.
*********************************************************
I'm going to take some time off now to go after some skirmish achievements, playing against the computer.
Some oddities:
This is my first career or campaign in which I didn't get the MLRB rating to 1000, and the first in which I wasn't able to get to the final Black Widow mission (time ran out).
Although I maxed out the mech chassis category, I only completed one weight class (light).
I think I was only one chassis away from completing the mediums (Assassin-21, which I only saw three of the entire game, and never any for sale).
There were some 'common' mechs I never got six pieces of, such as one of the Warhammers (I finally got the Davion version on my last day of play), at least one Rifleman, at least one JagerMech. I didn't get a Steiner Archer until i was down to 37 days to play, etc.
It was almost certainly a mistake to go after as many flashpoints (priority missions) as possible. I still had at least four queued up at the end, and the time spent running from one to the next would've been better spent pursuing ordinary missions. Despite six of my pilots ending with all 10s for skills, and the other five with three 10s and a 9, my experience score was depressingly low, and going after common missions would've helped a lot with that. (This is also the first time I completely stopped using my personal pilot when she maxed out. In other career/campaigns I always brought her out of retirement for priority missions.)
As Mark Dey recommended, I should not have pursued alliances. The Taurian bonus weapon of super small lasers was quite helpful, and the Combine's heat negation systems moderately so, but Liao had nothing useful to me in the way of weapons. I did buy a couple of mech parts from them, but really not worth the effort. Alliances do help your final score, with both the maximum and minimum relationship values giving bonus points, whereas staying near the middle for everybody minimizes that bonus. The reason I did pursue alliances was that I was trying to pick up some achievements, which was successful — five if I get credited with the elite finish, including three new alliances.
Once I got the maximum chassis score I should've shifted my contract negotiations away from mech parts and toward money. I'm embarrassed to say how low my money score ended.
*********************************************************
I'm going to take some time off now to go after some skirmish achievements, playing against the computer.
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