What to do with extra Experience?

[Oni]

Once a Mechwarrior has maximized their skills (10/10/10/10), whatever their specialization, they keep collecting experience despite it having no purpose. Let's give that extra XP a purpose, shall we?

Random Ideas:

Communal XP Pool: Veteran Mercs can "donate" extra XP to a communal pool at a markdown, say 100 personal XP converted to 1 pool XP or whatever conversion rate seems fair, which can then be donated to rookies to improve their skills. Representing the Vets sharing their knowledge with the noobs... perhaps upgrading the Argo's Simulation Pods can improve the conversion rate.

Temporary Bonuses: A pilot can "spend" some of their XP to give themselves a bonus in their next fight. It'll only last for their next fight, but they can range from small inexpensive bonuses (like High Spirits) to expensive stuff that'll make them amazing in their next drop (assuming they don't get their cockpit shot).

Both of these are things I can think of off the top of my head to make use of that useless extra XP you collect in the late game... Heck, why wait till the late game? It could be a legitimate decision to 'spend' XP on a bonus instead of skills for that next hard mission.

What do you think? What other things can you all think of?

 

[Bubbasan]

I like your temporary bonus idea. I wouldn’t mind using it on permanent bonuses like bonus to hit or damage with specifics weapons or mechs.

 

[Oni]

I like your temporary bonus idea. I wouldn’t mind using it on permanent bonuses like bonus to hit or damage with specifics weapons or mechs.

I suppose permanent bonuses could also be a thing, if significantly more expensive. Like "Heavy Mech specialist = +1 initiative when using a heavy mech" or some such.

An example temp bonus would be "Die Hard = Pilot cannot die on next mission, they will however be injured as appropriate depending on how their mech was destroyed" so you can field a Light without worrying about killing your merc, or 'Healthy = all injuries received on next mission take half as long to heal". You could even scale some bonuses to a pilots skill levels, a 2/3/1/1 rookie would be cheaper to give 'Die Hard' or other abilities to than a 7/9/8/5 veteran.

Another thing I'd like to see would be advanced character start options, as in during character generation the last screen gives you a bunch of options and 5 "points" to spend on them to give your PC a unique flavour. Like "Natural Leader = double Lance resolve generation when pilot is included in the mission", or "Ancestral Relic = inherited Battlemech is actually a Star League remnant - choose one: cost 3 Medium/4 Heavy/5 Assault". Stuff like that... although that last bit feels like another thread.

 

[Donvale]

How about buying bonuses that only last until certain events occur.
i.e.
Headhunter: +10% chance of a headshot, until a headshot is achieved.
Hardy: +1 injury resistance, until an injury is sustained.
Fast Healer: Halve injury time, until an imjury is healed.

This kind of thing, they could have different costs, or even be random options that change over time (to make it worth checking into the Barracks once each planet or so).

 

[type-1]

What about a "deploying with a veteran" bonus? Instead of the unit gaining XP forever a fraction of the XP they would have gained gets divided among the other mechwarriors that deploy with the veteran. The in lore explanation is that by having inexperienced units deploy with someone that has max stats they get to watch and learn from the veteran and this increases the XP they gain during combat. Right now I have four max stats mechwarriors and there is no reason to take on recruits because of the huge disparity in stat points between recruits vs my veterans.

Another idea would be to have the Random Number Generator affected by the excess XP a mechwarrior has. In lore this would be because I veteran mech that 'has seen some things' is more likely to make the impossible shots or line their cockpit with old flak jackets to prevent stray shrapnel causing an injury or something while a novice is less calm and collected under fire making those impossible shots less probable and hasn't learnt all the tricks the old mechwarriors that are not 'by the book' yet.

I also like the idea of temporary bonuses, for example the aforementioned "fast healer" suits one of my mechwarrior's personalities perfectly because even a piece of shrapnel in the leg won't keep her out of the cockpit, she would have told the doc to slap a bandage on it and worry about the shrapnel when we are in transit to a new system. I do think that for every temporary bonus there should also be a temporary debuff as that would make it about weighing the pros vs the cons more (just like do I want a fast light mech that is hard to hit or a slow heavy mech that is easy to hit). For example "fast healing" could let the mechwarrior ignore one or two injuries and deploy immediately but at the cost of -2 points to piloting stats per ignored injury (or -4 points even, this is late game and the mechwarrior will have 10 piloting stat so losing 4 or 8 points is plausible and possible) as it's much harder to pilot a mech in an injured state.



1. Deploying with a veteran



2. R.N.G affected by excess XP



3. Temporary buff/debuff system bought with excess XP

[Mod edit: No forum polls.]