Faction Play
From MegaMekNET
So, you've worked your way through a few battles with SOL and successfully defected to one of the Great Houses of the Inner Sphere. Congratulations! You're about ready to start playing MegaMekNET for real. However, there's a lot of information that you'll need to know as you get started on your career. This guide will try to help you get started as a true commander for your House.
Contents |
Topics for this page
Topics to be discussed
- "Going Active" / AFR
- Influence
- Unit Viewer / Online Help
- ELO
- Reward Points
- Observation etiquette?
- Leveled pilots
- Non-mech units
Topics covered
- "Sub-factions" and ranks (including getting out of the Academy)
- Production Calculation and Unit Autoproduction (just added to the Production page)
- Scrapping / Donating / Trading units
- Repairs (need to actually fill out the Repair page)
- Factories and House Bays (brief description here, more detail in MekWars Faction Status tab)
"Subfactions" and ranks
As you play MegaMekNET, you will gain experience points. By gaining experience, you can advance to a higher rank. Each rank is often referred to as a "subfaction". Here are the four ranks, and the requirement for achieving each one:
- Academy: the default rank for a newly defected player
- Garrison Commander: requires at least one game played as an Academy player (generally a Combat Sim, Bandit Reprisal, or Tutorial mission)
- Regular Commander: requires 1000 XP
- Frontline Commander: requires at least 2000 XP, plus a very high ELO ranking (exact requirement is unknown, since a player's ELO score is not visible)
After you've played your first game as a House member, you should receive a message in the Main Channel that says you've become eligible for promotion. Now you need a moderator or one of your House leaders to promote you. Click the link in the promotion message, and any available mods will be notified that you are waiting for promotion. Usually this will be taken care of within a few minutes. As a Garrison Commander, you can now begin fighting in earnest in defense of your House.
Hangar Management
Introduction
Each player has their own hangar of units. Upon defection, your House issued you 9 starting units: 4 light meks, 4 medium meks, and 1 heavy mek. Each individual unit requires a certain number of bays to house it. For example, a light mek requires 3 bays in your hangar, while a medium mek requires 4 bays. You can purchase additional bays later, at a cost of 1500 CBills per bay.
Repairing Units
War isn't pretty. Your nice, shiny new meks will soon find themselves battered, scarred, and in need of repair. Repair requires technicians to do the work, and the money to pay for the repairs. The simplest way to conduct repair is to click the "Repair All" button just below your hangar display. Or, right-click a damaged unit and select "Repair > Bulk Repair". For more details, see the Repair page.
Purchasing Units
So, you just had a hard fight, and some of your units were destroyed. Or maybe you just want a new mek to round out that lance you've been creating. Either way, you want to buy another unit. Your House has a number of factories capable of building different types of new units. It also has a collection of "house bays" which may contain extra units that can be purchased. You can see your House's factories and house bays in the MekWars Faction Status tab.
Buying a unit requires cash ("C-Bills") and influence. If you purchase a unit direct from the factory, you will receive a new unit that is randomly created based on your House's build tables (which define the chance of a given unit being created). You have no direct control over what kind of unit you receive, other than choosing the weight and type ("light mek", "heavy vehicle", etc).
Units purchased from your house bays are half-price compared to a new unit from a factory, and you can see what units are available before you purchase. However, these units are often unwanted, and there's usually only a few available.
For more information on purchasing units, see the MekWars Faction Status tab page. For information on how unit components are created or units are auto-produced, see Production.
Trading, Scrapping, and Donating Units
Trading units is a common practice in MegaMekNET. Many players offer up salvaged units for trade, or want to get rid of units they no longer use. There are two ways to transfer a unit to someone:
- Right-click the receiving player's name in the player list, select "Send > Send Unit", and select the unit to transfer.
- Right-click the unit to transfer, select "Transactions > Transfer unit", and select the player to receive the unit.
Remember that a player must have enough bays free to receive the unit.
If a player wants to destroy a unit entirely, he can "scrap" it by right-clicking it and selecting "Transactions > Scrap Unit". Note that that scrapping a unit actually costs you CBills and influence, unless the unit is badly damaged (or you just finished a game). Once a unit is scrapped, it is gone forever. On the other hand, a player can "donate" the unit to his faction's house bays by right-clicking it and selecting "Transactions > Donate Unit". Again, notice that donating costs the same amount as scrapping a unit.
It is generally considered a bad idea to scrap a unit unless it is severely damaged and/or utterly worthless. It's also worth offering a unit to other members in your faction before you donate it, and only donating if no one else wants it.
(Created and currently edited by User:Acemarke)
