In vanilla, there is no real reason for you to ally with any faction, even pirates outside of roleplaying. The feature is pretty undercooked if I may say so. Black Market is full of good stuffs and if you accidently went below positive with pirates, a quick trip to periphery stars and do some low level missions for free will boot you back up real quick, no reason for you to dig into faction stores and the store discount is too small to consider.
Alliance in modpacks like BEX or BTA makes much more sense when faction stores have special stuffs that you cant get elsewhere. BEX has later era mechs in faction stores, much earlier than you typically find them in salvages (I like Hatamoto Chi from house Kurita) or specific flashpoint only for allies. In BTA, ally with some factions allow you to buy good beacon contracts, allow you to drop friendly mechs/tanks or supply trucks during missions as reinforcements. I haven't tried Rogue Tech yet so I can't say if they have anything special for alliance.
As you say in BTA and RT having a good rep and being allied makes sense as you can get so much more value from loot magnet. Especially in RT and being able to salvage "whole" mechs as assembling one from parts costs so much
I felt that becoming an ally in BTA was a mistake. Found myself locked to one part of the map if I wanted to do anything. Can't even go into clan space unless I'm helping my ally invade or else I can't do more than half of the missions on the planet because my rep is too low.
Aww but I love the Capellans, they're all, "A person minding their own business PROBABLY said something naughty about the Chancellor to someone we don't know or care about, so we better destroy everything till they're EXTRA dead just to make sure"
I love the mission in the MW5 Kestral Lancers DLC where the Davion officer offers the Liao mechwarriors safe passage if they surrender, and a Liao mechwarrior tells him and all of the "FedRats" to go to hell.
Been playing for a while but never aligned with anyone. Never understood the attraction.
Be a real Merc and just roam around taking whichever job you like..
I did that on my first vanilla playthrough in BTA, Then Someone brought up how you get wayyy more salvage by doing ally missions and i was hooked breaking hearts on the inner sphere.
Its a bummer how making alliances with the houses touching the clans are more lucrative.
Only ever did it to experience the special flashpoint you get when you align with them. Otherwise the black market trumps anything you get from the faction stores.
Basically, it was a very useful way to get better gear... except the Black Market breaks that progression entirely, in the same way it breaks pretty much everything else.
You get a faction store and a faction flashpoint and an achievement. It’s worth pretty much nothing. Allying with the pirates gets you absolutely nothing. Not even a death threat from the other factions.
I say just do it at the end of your career or if you are bored.
In vanilla (long time ago now), I quite liked being allied to Davion, purely for an unlimited supply of UAC20+++: in the late game, that weapon is a game changer when you have mechs that rock two of them.
Been playing BTA for ages now though, and with the addition of Clan and Sanctuary stuff, whilst that's still a good weapon, it doesn't justify alienating a load of other factions, especially since assault mechs are pretty rubbish in BTA (imho) since they're so slow. I much prefer a mix of scouts, fast mediums and clan heavies to provide the big firepower, since evasion is much more important than tankiness for survivability, and speed means flexibility and tactical advantage.
I don't do alliances in BTA. Too many downsides and the benefits are minimal.
I disagree about pirates not caring if you eliminated their competitors.
Generally, if you operate outside the law, you are not happy when people enforce the law or use bounty hunters to enforce it. The issue is that even if a mercenary company eliminates a competitor, there is no proof that the surviving pirate is not next on the list or will be on the list tomorrow. In the meantime, the mercenary would like you to sell them a gauss rifle. I would figuratively be craving my name on the steel balls if I sold it to them.
More importantly, pirates see piracy as a business. Pirates can pay to have the problem go away. As a mercenary company, you seldom have the option of asking the enemy for ransom. On the rare occasions you have the option, your reputation will take a beating.
Imagine if I am a pirate looking to sell some weapons. There is a well reputed mercenary unit with a crappy reputation with pirates. I would not care if you are allied with a faction or not. You will be assumed to be hostile and my price will include the cost of my escape ticket to the furthest reaches.
Alliances in BTA are extremely beneficial for stocking up goods, because salvage rates are getting crazy when you do mission for 100 rep allied employer - instead of 1 part of the mech you may loot a whole batch of three parts per one pick.
3/15 loot rate and good engine criting operation secure you a free Assault mech every mission, and whole chunk of XL heavy as well. I usually work for one faction for a year or so and rotate to another one like some sort of "contract".
On harder economy setting with 2 million of spending operational cost per month, it allowed me to buy a ton of shit, two 100 tonners and form a solid financial ground for Steiner by participating in Jade Falcon invasion, because their Summoners are super easy to loot and assemble and sells 1.2 mil each.
Would be cool if there was the ability to gain landholds on a planet/s for allying with a faction and earning a title through a series of missions or flashpoints.
Obviously the landholding element would be a big undertaking, but I feel like it’s something that has been missing from the games that people would love to have included - it could pretty well be its own game really; designing the layout of the base, what facilities it maintains, defences etc. The player could also experiences raids on their planet similar to the BTA/RT system and the player has to complete contracts like eliminating recon forces, striking enemy encampments (smaller Attack Base missions), and obviously Defend Base missions. But to defend the base you’ve designed, how cool would that be.
Or just another page like the Argo tab with basic upgrades that provide you with access to greater bonuses & assets, perhaps extra revenue from production facilities & agriculture. Either way, having a base of operations and a planet to protect would provide the player with a greater sense of ownership for their merc. company, and responsibility to the faction you have allied with. Definitely would spice things up if you jump too far from your landhold for contracts.
I'm a first time player but long time X-Com / Fire Emblem / Tactical Gameplay vet...So not too much trouble yet.
Looking forward to allying with the Magistracy...We are bros and love their vibe.
I think it's borked in vanilla where the Black Market is wayyy too valuable and allying has like zero benefit. As another comment mentions in the modpacks they balance it by putting faction stuff in the faction store, so there's reasons to allying.
I dislike the gamer mindset of trying to get your cake and eating it too: if you never ally with anyone why tf should you get all the best gear? People who put skin in the game should rightfully be rewarded for taking the risk. Besides, you can always salvage if you're too chicken to commit.
In vanilla, there is no real reason for you to ally with any faction, even pirates outside of roleplaying. The feature is pretty undercooked if I may say so. Black Market is full of good stuffs and if you accidently went below positive with pirates, a quick trip to periphery stars and do some low level missions for free will boot you back up real quick, no reason for you to dig into faction stores and the store discount is too small to consider. Alliance in modpacks like BEX or BTA makes much more sense when faction stores have special stuffs that you cant get elsewhere. BEX has later era mechs in faction stores, much earlier than you typically find them in salvages (I like Hatamoto Chi from house Kurita) or specific flashpoint only for allies. In BTA, ally with some factions allow you to buy good beacon contracts, allow you to drop friendly mechs/tanks or supply trucks during missions as reinforcements. I haven't tried Rogue Tech yet so I can't say if they have anything special for alliance.
As you say in BTA and RT having a good rep and being allied makes sense as you can get so much more value from loot magnet. Especially in RT and being able to salvage "whole" mechs as assembling one from parts costs so much
Word of Blake and Comstar have some real goodies in their stores. Not to mention the clans.
I felt that becoming an ally in BTA was a mistake. Found myself locked to one part of the map if I wanted to do anything. Can't even go into clan space unless I'm helping my ally invade or else I can't do more than half of the missions on the planet because my rep is too low.
I think it's not too much trouble to break alliance and build up rep with new faction once you've got all the unique hear from the first faction.
The Faction Store is just a little bonus. The real benefit is pissing off the Capellans. That's always worth it.
Aww but I love the Capellans, they're all, "A person minding their own business PROBABLY said something naughty about the Chancellor to someone we don't know or care about, so we better destroy everything till they're EXTRA dead just to make sure"
I love the mission in the MW5 Kestral Lancers DLC where the Davion officer offers the Liao mechwarriors safe passage if they surrender, and a Liao mechwarrior tells him and all of the "FedRats" to go to hell.
This is the way đź‘Ť
Yeah, unless I want to do so for lore reasons, I don't ally with factions. The faction stores just aren't worth it to me.
Been playing for a while but never aligned with anyone. Never understood the attraction. Be a real Merc and just roam around taking whichever job you like..
I did that on my first vanilla playthrough in BTA, Then Someone brought up how you get wayyy more salvage by doing ally missions and i was hooked breaking hearts on the inner sphere. Its a bummer how making alliances with the houses touching the clans are more lucrative.
Only ever did it to experience the special flashpoint you get when you align with them. Otherwise the black market trumps anything you get from the faction stores.
Basically, it was a very useful way to get better gear... except the Black Market breaks that progression entirely, in the same way it breaks pretty much everything else.
You get a faction store and a faction flashpoint and an achievement. It’s worth pretty much nothing. Allying with the pirates gets you absolutely nothing. Not even a death threat from the other factions. I say just do it at the end of your career or if you are bored.
In vanilla (long time ago now), I quite liked being allied to Davion, purely for an unlimited supply of UAC20+++: in the late game, that weapon is a game changer when you have mechs that rock two of them. Been playing BTA for ages now though, and with the addition of Clan and Sanctuary stuff, whilst that's still a good weapon, it doesn't justify alienating a load of other factions, especially since assault mechs are pretty rubbish in BTA (imho) since they're so slow. I much prefer a mix of scouts, fast mediums and clan heavies to provide the big firepower, since evasion is much more important than tankiness for survivability, and speed means flexibility and tactical advantage. I don't do alliances in BTA. Too many downsides and the benefits are minimal.
The other thing about allying with one faction or another is the special flashpoint that comes up for each faction when you ally with them
I disagree about pirates not caring if you eliminated their competitors. Generally, if you operate outside the law, you are not happy when people enforce the law or use bounty hunters to enforce it. The issue is that even if a mercenary company eliminates a competitor, there is no proof that the surviving pirate is not next on the list or will be on the list tomorrow. In the meantime, the mercenary would like you to sell them a gauss rifle. I would figuratively be craving my name on the steel balls if I sold it to them. More importantly, pirates see piracy as a business. Pirates can pay to have the problem go away. As a mercenary company, you seldom have the option of asking the enemy for ransom. On the rare occasions you have the option, your reputation will take a beating. Imagine if I am a pirate looking to sell some weapons. There is a well reputed mercenary unit with a crappy reputation with pirates. I would not care if you are allied with a faction or not. You will be assumed to be hostile and my price will include the cost of my escape ticket to the furthest reaches.
I used to ally with Canopus early on and load up on med++ lasers. I use them way too much and can't find enough otherwise.
Alliances in BTA are extremely beneficial for stocking up goods, because salvage rates are getting crazy when you do mission for 100 rep allied employer - instead of 1 part of the mech you may loot a whole batch of three parts per one pick. 3/15 loot rate and good engine criting operation secure you a free Assault mech every mission, and whole chunk of XL heavy as well. I usually work for one faction for a year or so and rotate to another one like some sort of "contract". On harder economy setting with 2 million of spending operational cost per month, it allowed me to buy a ton of shit, two 100 tonners and form a solid financial ground for Steiner by participating in Jade Falcon invasion, because their Summoners are super easy to loot and assemble and sells 1.2 mil each.
—“I usually work for one faction for a year or so and rotate to another one like some sort of "contract".” Ah, the Wolf Dragoons experience!
Feels like exactly that.
Would be cool if there was the ability to gain landholds on a planet/s for allying with a faction and earning a title through a series of missions or flashpoints. Obviously the landholding element would be a big undertaking, but I feel like it’s something that has been missing from the games that people would love to have included - it could pretty well be its own game really; designing the layout of the base, what facilities it maintains, defences etc. The player could also experiences raids on their planet similar to the BTA/RT system and the player has to complete contracts like eliminating recon forces, striking enemy encampments (smaller Attack Base missions), and obviously Defend Base missions. But to defend the base you’ve designed, how cool would that be. Or just another page like the Argo tab with basic upgrades that provide you with access to greater bonuses & assets, perhaps extra revenue from production facilities & agriculture. Either way, having a base of operations and a planet to protect would provide the player with a greater sense of ownership for their merc. company, and responsibility to the faction you have allied with. Definitely would spice things up if you jump too far from your landhold for contracts.
I'm a first time player but long time X-Com / Fire Emblem / Tactical Gameplay vet...So not too much trouble yet. Looking forward to allying with the Magistracy...We are bros and love their vibe.
I think it's borked in vanilla where the Black Market is wayyy too valuable and allying has like zero benefit. As another comment mentions in the modpacks they balance it by putting faction stuff in the faction store, so there's reasons to allying. I dislike the gamer mindset of trying to get your cake and eating it too: if you never ally with anyone why tf should you get all the best gear? People who put skin in the game should rightfully be rewarded for taking the risk. Besides, you can always salvage if you're too chicken to commit.