I played this game a lot when I was young.. when looking for information on it on the web it struck me that the info just wasn’t out there. I remember all kinds of crazy things(things you only learn by playing the same game over and over for, say, 2 or 3 years) so I figured I would write some of it down.
Jason is a MechWarrior, in tradition of his family, and is getting a first class education thanks to his father being all buddy buddy with the House Steiner Archon. You can visit her if you want, because she just happens to be at this little backwater training planet. Too bad we’re going to disappoint her by failing missions over and over.
Jason’s only chance to get his skills raised is here at the training center, so we need to maximize that. We’re going to need time and money.. time is a funny thing in the early stages, because it often ‘stops.’ By this I mean that you have a 15 C-Bill allowance that ticks away at certain intervals (not when you are in certain places, contrary to the idiotic shit posted at Gamefaqs.)
You’ll start out with 35 C-Bills, and get 1 allowance tick after that before you do anything. So, run over to Comstar, buy 35 BakPhar, save the game, run against the wall close to Comstar to accelerate time(you can tell how fast time is ticking by the electric fence animation) until you get your allowance tick. When you do, run up into Comstar… your investment will either have ~doubled or ~halved. If it doubled, take it out and be happy, if it halved, load the game and try again. You can do this at pretty much any point in the game.
Lately I prefer to keep my money out of the bank entirely when I’m not actively investing, but you can probably safely store it in DefHes. Do not leave money in BakPhar when you go to do a training mission, you may get an allowance tick before you get back to Comstar.
Gaming the bank may seem cheesy, and it is, but we’re going to need a whole lot of money to buy us all the training and a flak suit and SRM or Inferno before we leave the training center, right? The gear is optional, but you will want the training. Anyway, note that you get a few ticks of allowance after each successful mission. What you do with that is up to you.
Depending which version of the game you have, you may get a quiz before Training missions. On most of the downloads you can get your hands on nowadays, the quiz has been disabled. I once had all of the quiz answers memorized, but no longer.. if you do get the quiz, try answering anything you want, it is likely it’s disabled.
Training mission 1: Mech Handling
I like to fail this one twice, although I’m not sure if you can get any skill yet in the first mission. You have to run to the southeast corner and back. Note that the Locust is faster than the Wasp or Chameleon, but you can successfully complete with all three. In order to fail(and hopefully get some piloting practice), I run around the entire map before going to the corner, which automatically fails you. One more thing: Be sure your DOSBox isn’t running too fast, or it can throw the timing off for these sort of missions! Mine is running at ~1000 cycles which gives me the most authentic sounding PC speaker effects although you may want to jack it up when passing time or running around.
Worth noting early: Skill training is split up by ‘time’ also. You can’t do a bunch of rifle/pistol/etc training back to back, so it is best to start out early. Rifle is the only one you really need, since all the good weapons are Rifle(or at least I think so, Inferno/SRM are shoulder launched) but I like training them all anyway.
After Mission 1: 2 allowance ticks
Training mission 2: Using your mech
This one is critically important to fail many, many times. There is no time limit however, so if you select the Wasp or Chameleon, you will have to successfully complete the mission. The only thing to do is select the Locust, which has no hands.
You need to locate the piece of rubble regardless.
Since you picked a mech with no hands, they will sass you about it, but a look at your character sheet tells you all I need to know about ‘failure.’
Keep failing until you are Good Piloting, which seems to be where progress stops. I ran the mission five more times after getting Good with no further gains.
After mission: 3 allowance ticks
Training Mission 3: Intro to Gunnery
Before you can do this training mission, you are sent back to the Barracks for a cutscene of sorts.
For this mission, we will be attacking a Locust shell that doesn’t fire back. I believe the mechanism for gaining Gunnery hinges on how many times you fire, so we’ll want a Locust ourselves, and only use its two Machine Guns.
Be careful not to destroy it.. keep in mind that damage marches towards Center Torso, so if you get a Left Arm hit that is Critical! Critical! Critical! that means the Left Arm and Left Torso are gone, and you’re into Internal Structure on the Center Torso. Destroying Center Torso = Destroying the mech, so we’ll just flee at this point.
I am not sure if you can actually raise Gunnery in this mission, as I tried a few times with no luck.. but it’s worth failing at least once to get the shame-message from the trainer.
After mission: 1 allowance tick, Jason-Amateur, Unskilled, Adequate, Unskilled, Good, Unskilled, Unskilled
Training Mission 4: These are not the droids you are looking for
This mission is just like the previous, except the droids can sometimes have Infernos or SRMs, which can slightly damage your mech. I failed this one repeatedly and was unable to get any skill points.
After mission: 1 allowance tick, Jason-Amateur, Amateur, Adequate, Unskilled, Good, Unskilled, Unskilled
Training Mission 5: Live combat vs. 1 Locust
In the introduction to this one, it says your combat computer is disabled, so you will have to win this one on your own.. hopefully that means Jason can start gaining Gunnery skill. My first attempt with a Wasp ended in Jason ejecting, due to the safe placement of the Locust’s Medium Laser in Center Torso and the unsafe placement of the Wasp’s weapons in RA/LL.. the outcome was almost predetermined. Well, and of course my having no gunnery skill isn’t helping.
After mission: Rick Atlas wants you to meet him at the lounge, and you get 2 allowance ticks. Jason-Amateur, Amateur, Good, Unskilled, Good, Unskilled, Unskilled
Training Mission 6: Live combat vs 2 Locusts
I was finally able to gain some skill in this one, only it was in Piloting. Gunnery is still Unskilled, which is crazy given the amount I fired. But with Piloting capped out I guess I don’t need to worry about that, at least. Since you usually get booted in the next mission, you need to fail this one enough to get Gunnery to Excellent. Not all that hard to do. You’ll also want to visit the Mechit-Lube and run through an apprenticeship for 500cbills. I hope you’ve been milking the BakPhar investments every chance you get! I probably won’t be able to afford an Inferno before I leave at this rate, but I can always get one later.
After mission: 1 allowance tick, Jason-Excellent, Excellent, Excellent, Excellent, Excellent, Unskilled, Unskilled
Note that when you are spamming Training at the Citadel, you will get an allowance tick after a few training sessions, so be prepared to take advantage of them. I got mine at Adequate/Adequate/Excellent. Doubling your money at this point can make a lot of difference!
I also got an allowance tick after buying an Inferno; I loaded to test and bought a Knife instead but did not get a tick. Make of that what you will.
If you were gaming the system really well, especially in these last few ticks, you’ll be able to afford an Inferno or SRM, along with a Heavy Environment Suit. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention, so I’m ending up with a Flak Suit instead. As long as you can afford the training, though, none of this other stuff matters and can be bought later.
Training Mission 7+8: Sometimes you get screwed, sometimes you don’t
This can sometimes be your final mission, or sometimes you proceed to mission 8. Most of the time, it seems, you’ll get attacked by 4 Jenners here, but sometimes you’ll get 3 Locusts instead.. I’m not exactly sure what the deciding factor is. Despite frequent reloads, I only got the 3 Locusts fight once, and I lost to it, so although I know Mission 8 is always the Jenner mission, I don’t know what allowance you get after Mission 7.
But about that: The most important thing you can do here is to take a Chameleon, and run north/west as soon as you get the Jenner mission. It is incredibly unlikely you can win against them, and even if you took a couple out your Chameleon would get really damaged. You want the Chameleon because it is the only 50-ton Mech you can get, whereas the Wasp and Locust are fairly common. Aside from the invasion, the enemy only uses Wasp, Stinger, and Locust (all 20 ton.)
Starport
You should have an arrow indicator on your minimap, which points towards Starport. This is courtesy of Rick Atlas's device he traded you earlier.
Once you get to town, expect to be attacked quite frequently. You can liquefy infantry pretty easily with an Inferno. Just run away from them and keep shooting, you will outrange most weapons.
One downside is that you won’t have allowance ticks telling you when time has passed… but on the upside, your investments will keep growing(or at least changing) from here on out, without the training missions’ timeline limiting you.
Buy a change of clothes(35), attend a medical seminar(500), and buy a medical kit(75) and you are pretty much all set.
So you meet up with Rex, your dad’s old pal, who was left here on the planet to rescue you. I bet he’s real happy about that. Rex says there are agents hiding amongst the techs and medics, and he wants you to go rescue an agent held in a prison to the Northeast. I say to hell with you, Rex.
I remember some of the agents are much better than others.. and there will be one double agent. I’ve never gotten more than one, and it’s usually the second one that you get. If you rescue the prisoner before getting your double agent, you’ll get his mech (briefly) then he’ll betray you and you’ll be down to 2 pilots again. Also note that the roster only has room for 4 entries. Despite this, you can wiggle around the system and end up with 5 guys and 3 mechs (instead of the story canon 4 and 2.)
So in order to recruit these stray agents, you need to go to the Mechit-Lube and ask about Apprenticeship, or go to the Hospital and get a seminar assumedly.
The NPCs
Edward – Edward is the first NPC you will get. Edward is awful. Like all Tech slot NPCs, he starts ‘Good’ in Tech and can further improve to Excellent via apprenticeship. His Body, Dex, and Charisma are awful, he has 3 movement with no armor on, and his only weapon skill is Amateur Rifle. He has Amateur Gunnery, but he’s not a mech pilot, so what does it matter? Note that the stats an NPC of a given name has are affected by their role.. a tech Edward will have Tech while a medic Edward will have Medical.
For the sake of argument, I am going to try to burn through the entire list of NPCs as Techs, for consistency, here is the list:
REX (not variable) – 6 Movement
- Body: High
- Dex: Mid
- Cha: Mid
- Bow & Blade: Amateur
- Pistol: Good
- Rifle: Adequate
- Gunnery: Excellent
- Piloting: Excellent
- Tech: Amateur
- Medical: Unskilled
EDWARD – 3 Movement
- Body: Low
- Dex: Low
- Cha: Mid
- Bow & Blade: Unskilled
- Pistol: Unskilled
- Rifle: Amateur
- Gunnery: Amateur
- Piloting: Unskilled
- Tech: Good
- Medical: Unskilled
RUSS – 3 Movement (was a traitor in my game, but only the first time his name came up)
- Body: Mid
- Dex: Low
- Cha: Mid
- Bow & Blade: Amateur
- Pistol: Amateur
- Rifle: Amateur
- Gunnery: Unskilled
- Piloting: Unskilled
- Tech: Good
- Medical: Unskilled
RICK – 3 Movement
- Body: Mid
- Dex: Low
- Cha: Low
- Bow & Blade: Unskilled
- Pistol: Unskilled
- Rifle: Unskilled
- Gunnery: Amateur
- Piloting: Unskilled
- Tech: Good
- Medical: Unskilled
ZEKE – 6 Movement
- Body: High
- Dex: Mid
- Cha: Low
- Bow & Blade: Unskilled
- Pistol: Amateur
- Rifle: Amateur
- Gunnery: Unskilled
- Piloting: Unskilled
- Tech: Good – Amateur if medic
- Medical: Unskilled – Good if medic
POSSUM – 5 Movement
- Body: Mid
- Dex: Mid
- Cha: Mid
- Bow & Blade: Unskilled
- Pistol: Amateur
- Rifle: Unskilled
- Gunnery: Amateur
- Piloting: Unskilled
- Tech: Good
- Medical: Amateur
MARCO – 7 Movement
- Body: High
- Dex: High
- Cha: Mid
- Bow & Blade: Unskilled
- Pistol: Amateur
- Rifle: Unskilled
- Gunnery: Unskilled
- Piloting: Unskilled
- Tech: Good
- Medical: Unskilled
RUSTY – 5 Movement
- Body: Mid
- Dex: Mid
- Cha: Low
- Bow & Blade: Unskilled
- Pistol: Unskilled
- Rifle: Unskilled
- Gunnery: Unskilled
- Piloting: Unskilled
- Tech: Good
- Medical: Amateur
HUNTER – 7 Movement
- Body: High
- Dex: High
- Cha: High
- Bow & Blade: Unskilled
- Pistol: Amateur
- Rifle: Unskilled
- Gunnery: Amateur
- Piloting: Unskilled
- Tech: Good
- Medical: Unskilled
..and that’s the end. After that, you get Edward again, and so on. I did not get another double agent the second time through the list.
I was going to roll on to Speed Shops next, but that information is already out there.
Now that I think of it… the intro portion is really all of the variance you have in this title. I ran around after selecting my guys (Zeke – Medic, Possum – Third pilot, Marco – Tech) and my next goal is to salvage a Wasp with no Engine or Gyro damage. But really, once you’re out in the world with a Chameleon and Commando and whatever third mech you choose, you’re all set.
There are some world events you can do, so visit all of the towns and enter everything you can. You may have also noticed that you can target the stands when you are fighting in the Starport Arena, so getting a Locust without engine/gyro damage can be a snap if you are a heartless bastard and don’t mind being exiled from Starport for a bit(I’m not sure, but it may be the only Comstar station accessible on the planet, so take some credits out first.)
The rest is just running around shooting things up while running errands, then a maze. After I had done most of the work here, I found this guide that fills in the gaps and is much more comprehensive, as I only covered things that I find interesting. So my one contribution to the Internet landscape is the list of NPC stats, but hey, that’s something!
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