Here is a FAQ and Guide through Magic's Exodus Campaign. It was done by KTE and is pretty extensive.

Can also be found at http://mc2tnetworks.gamingsource.co.uk/exodus_faq.htm">Thunder Networks. Map Screenshots being added as I update almost all are done.

Great FAQ! Many thanks!

While this is great info, though, has anybody done a mission-by-mission analysis, including recommended mech loadout for each mission? I'm gotten up to Mission 5, but I'm finding that I may have chosen poorly in terms of mech purchases and salvage options, so it would be interesting to have a reference of what mech combinations were used to complete different missions.

Aside from the omission of this type of info, though, this FAQ is a HUGE help! Thumbs up!



-- Lowboy

It's all pretty much personal preference...and common sense.

Captain J. E. Searcy
1st Platoon, C Troop (Dead Last), 4th Battalion (The Last), 'Mech Regiment
Pesht Armored Cavalry

Common sense? What the heck is THAT all about?



-- Lowboy

One thing I was forced to do and that was to figure out which weapons were better than others. And that was by multiplying rate of fire by damage. Hence pulse lasers are better than reg. lasers. Ultra ac's are wicked.

Others may have figured it out before but I had just been to lazy to sit down and analyze the effectiveness of the weapons , wanting to get on with the gameplay as quickly as possible.

That's a "Hmm...maybe, maybe not." For example, if your pilots are laser specialists, then they're probably going to own somebody who has an identical 'Mech, save the lasers are pulse lasers.
I always have two laser specialists early on, for the super-nifty Cougar and the Scat you can salvage in the Pirate's Grave mission.

Captain J. E. Searcy
1st Platoon, C Troop (Dead Last), 4th Battalion (The Last), 'Mech Regiment
Pesht Armored Cavalry

Good tips, guys! I've been looking more closely at two things, weapon-wise: Rate of fire, and damage, and doing exactly what Brain_Failure recommends (multiply rate of fire by damage to see which weapon combinations yield the quickest accumulation of damage).

For the Exodus campaign, I've also been loading up all my pilots with the "Toughness" ability first to increase their survivability, followed by the Light/Medium/Heavy Mech Specialist abilities next. Since I've got the Cougar, I've already given Twitch the "Toughness" ability, followed by the "Light Mech Specialist" ability to enable him to better wield the Cougar in combat situations (he's my "lead" pilot so far, with the highest marksmaship and piloting skills). I'll probably use Capt. Searcy's tip about loading him up with the laser specialty next, to make him even deadlier with the Cougar (love that little mech!).

Again, good tips -- many thanks for stepping in to offer advice!



-- Lowboy

Thanks for reading!

I don't mind discussing logistics and in-game strategies in general, but including such information specific to the Exodus Campaign in the FAQ would downright dilute the challenge of strategising for missions. And that's something that everyone should feel for themselves, it's not for me to take it away. In other words, to put it bluntly, you have been given a hammer already, you still want me to crack your head for you?

Let me give you a general tip of mine just for fun. I never use gausses. In MC2, they just plain suck.

Good FAQ, read the 7 missions i've already done and you've blogged down the best ways to win in a good way

The Black Island (err?) with Renards Atlas etc etc.
I think it's just plain dumb luck if you manage to get the turrets to take out those 6 mechs I never did the map the way you completed it, but I agree they can get locked up at a wall section every now and then. And it's just plain fun to watch a Awesome die to two LRM turrets

Anyways good work!

Also maybe you shouldn't call it a FAQ It's more like a walkthrough /pedantic ass

newbie here. was at beginning the of the campaign so i guess i can add a little to the faq along the way... spoilers included so be warned...




in mission 2 there are 4 crates instead of 3 as mentioned. the one not mentioned is near the downed centurion(NE of it). and i'VE got mech salvage after that. maybe thats bcos i'm playing in vet mode? there is also a chance that the pirates got wiped out b4hand and leaves u with 4 clanners...

Love the FAQ, lets me see just what it is that I missed, helped me a lot on my 2nd go at Exodus.

One thing about salvaged Clan mechs: Cougar is cool, but I managed to snag a suped-up, kick-ass, one-of-a-kind killing machine (also known as a Timber Wolf). Here's how.

*****SPOILER ALERT*****

On level 3, End of Ambrosia Pirates, it is possible to (instead of salvaging a crappy Hunchback and having it run to the waypoint) run a REALLY fast mech to it (used a Cougar). Have your other, slower, mech run down to meet the two bad guys waiting for the convoy at the same time. With any luck the last ambulance was able to get out of the base before the Falcons show up.If the Falcon Firemoth from up top spots it, you gotta try again (took me like 8 tries). Then you just have to go on normally, blowing the tar out of the 2 mechs, then the firemoth (make sure you save after the two mechs, if you are sure that the convoy is safe).

After that comes even more luck:you have to hope that the Wolf guys don't blow up the wrong mechs (they WILL win the firefight). You may have to reload a couple of times to actually get the Timber Wolf, but trust me, IT IS WORTH IT. That thing has enough ER clan lasers to blow the tar out of anything I could load a Dragon with. Ended up stripping the LRMs and loading up on lasers and large lasers to own short range.

All in all, not much lives long facing a Kit Fox, a Cougar, and a Timber Wolf.

Urbanmech: High-tech assault weapon or target practice?

late addition.

for a bit of an extra challenge.

on mission 2 ignore the salvagable centurion.
try pick up BOTH the shadowcat and cougar. pretty damn hard with only one mech against 3-4 pirates.

mission 3 ignore the hunchback and only salvage clan mechs. say the twolf and summoner. difficult, highly reliant on clan-clan fight results.
also reliant on them not seeing your convoy, so you gotta go pretty damn fast to get the convoy going. very exciting.

Looks like this is an old dead topic, but I've only just downloaded exodus so...

The first thing in the FAQ is 'buy two mechs'...how are you supposed to do this with 150k cbills which buys precisely one locust, which blew up after being hit once by one of the vehicles???

Has someone been tinkering with this to make it even harder, because that's not fun, that's irritating.
Chuck

nothing kills like overkill

nothing kills like overkill

Check the thread directly below this one for all the files to download and the proper sequence to install them with. The 150k c-bills should buy you two assassins( which is what I ended up doing). Originally there was no choice you had two FireAnts and that was that.

Hi there,
I started MC2 Exodus Campaign (already finished all MCg campaigns, w/o Nova Cat revenge) and it looks like in second mission of second campain I just can't do anything. I just start, and start moving and in a few second I got failure screen.

What can I do to deal with this???

Finally I managed to finishi this campaign - it took me a few tries to start ptoperly, so that the truck is not finished in first 2-4 seconds (before Bushwacker caputers the turrnets).

after that - very nice mission.

thanx,

NEED HELP PLease! how did you all get through the mission to destroy the 10 resource bunkers? All it lets me do is capture them and once you do that you can't destroy them, plus it will not allow you to use the resource points to salvage anything or call in airstrikes.
I'm stuck on that mission.
thnxs

"Incoming rounds have the Right-of-way"

Use forced fire; that means press the F button on your keypoard during firing

check out wolfman's missions and wolfman's forum at
http://www.wolfman-x.net

There are three commands you can use to do it:

'A' = fires your energy weapons only
'C' = stops your movement and fires everything
'F' = fires everything, but you still move (I think. never tried this command)

thanks guys I'll try that first chance I get

"Incoming rounds have the Right-of-way"

it work! I finally got by that mission.
thank

"Incoming rounds have the Right-of-way"

Hello people, it's been more than a year since I wrote it. Yes, I've tried out all the tricks mentioned here by other posters and I absolutely agree that in the early missions, getting a Catapult, Shadow Cat and Timber Wolf or Summoner really does make life a whole lot easier! It's like getting that Timber Wolf during the early missions of MC1, it's awesome to have such firepower so early! I must've replayed the campaign at least five times since but never got around to updating the FAQ, sorry. Don't know if it matters now but I'll do it anyhow.

By the way, does anyone know how to convert PDF to Word or something? I've had to replace my hard disk twice after two crashes and naturally my original copy has been long lost. It would be a nightmare for me to type out everything again.

Using Acrobat 6, you can open your PDF and then do File->Save as->Microsoft Word Doc

Cindar

Thanks, do I have to buy Acrobat 6 or can I dl it for free? I only have Acrobat 4.

This link will take you to a page where you can dl Acrobat 7.0 for free 30 day trial:

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatpro/tryout.html

Cindar

I am including some nifty tricks if you would like to decide what Mechs you would like to purchase in the Exodus and which enemies you would like to encounter at any given point in the campaign.

This same form can be used for modifying the Carver campaign easily if you installed Magic's Carver Purchase files.

*** THIS WORKS WITH MAGIC'S EXPANSION 1.0 ONLY ***

FIRST - The Object ID List for many of the Mechs and Vehicles in the expansion missions:

MECH ID'S (minus one or two)

Anubis 53
Assassin 649
Atlas 51
Avatar 934
Awesome 923
BloodAsp 875
BloodAsp2 936
Bushwacker 874
Catapult 18
Cauldron 647
Centurion 645
Chimera
Cougar 630
Cyclops 873
Dragon 702
Enfield 877
Enforcer 648
Executioner 939
Flashman 922
Flea 247
Firemoth 650
Firestarter 449
Gargoyle 925
Hellhound 733
Hellspawn 773
Highlander 49
Highlander2c 639
Hollander 47
Hollander2c
Hunchback 16
HunchbackIIc 7
Jaegermech 50
Jaegermech3 652
Jenner 919
Jenner2c 933
Jevelin 929
Kodiak 940
LaoHu 17
Locust
Loki 926
MadCat 52
Maurauder 937
Mararauder2c 938
MenShen 3
Orion 930
Orion2c 932
Puma 928
Raven 48
Ryoken 629
ShaYu 1
Starslayer 2
ShadowCat 876
Shootist 878
Thor 631
Uller 15
Urbanmech 246
Victor 924
Vulcan 689
Vulture 54
Warhawk 935
Werewolf 45
Wolfhound 46
Wolfhound2c 641
Zeus 58

VEHICLE ID's (Minus 1 or 2)

Truck
FuelTruck 148
Ambulance 219
CargoTruck 150
MobileHQ 147
OrdnanceTruck 151
TroopTransport 238
Jeep 181
AeroSpotter 524
APC 117
ArmoredCar 145
Bulldog 642
Centipede 328
DrillSon 330
Romel 657
Shreck
Storm 200
Swarmlrmc 548
Legion 144
LRMC 201
Hetzer 225
HeavyCopter 361
Hunter 146
Partisan 121
MediumCopter 234
Monsoon 143
Vedette 123
Harasser 118


SECOND - Altering the Campaign

Using the referrence above, open the a_0_2.fit file (with Notepad) in the MechCommander2/data/missions/ folder.

Scroll down until you reach lines that read: (My points are to the right of the lines)

Warrior2
st Profile = "PMWVeteran"

Here you can change enemy skill lev: PMWGreen,PMWRegular,PMWElite


Scroll down a few more lines until you see this:

Part2
ul ObjectNumber = 689 (change this to any number in above referrence list)
ul ControlType = 2
b PlayerPart = FALSE
c MyIcon = 0
c TeamID = 1
c CommanderID = 1
ul Pilot = 2
f PositionX = -3690.666748
f PositionY = -2026.666870
f Rotation = 0.000000
l Active = 1
l Exists = 1
f Damage = 0.000000
ul BaseColor = -16777216
ul HighlightColor1 = -65536
ul HighlightColor2 = -8355712
ul SelfRepairBehavior = 0
ul ControlDataType = 1
st ObjectProfile = "PM101100"
st CSVFile = "Vulcan" (change this to corresponding name in the reference list)
ul VariantNumber = 0 (Make sure this is zero unless you know the unit you're adding has a variant)

EXAMPLE:

Change the lines like so:

ul ObjectNumber = 689 to 52 (a MadCat)

st CSVFile = "Vulcan" to "MadCat"
ul VariantNumber = 0


Congrats!
You just made the mission a whole lot harder (with awesome salvage)
That's it!


THIRD - PURCHASE FILE ID's
(For Exodus or Carver missions)

Open up any *purchase*.fit file (with Notepad) found in the MechCommander2/data/missions/ folder.

The standard format of these files is something like this:

FITini

Components

b AllComponents = FALSE

l Component0 = 7 //Heat Sink
l Component1 = 8 //Double Heat Sink
l Component2 = 9 //Clan Double Heat Sink
l Component3 = 10 //Jump Jets
l Component4 = 25 //Armor Plating
l Component5 = 105 //Machine Gun
l Component6 = 114 //MG Array
l Component7 = 100 //Light Autocannon (AC5)
l Component8 = 101 //Autocannon (AC10)
l Component9 = 102 //Heavy Autocannon (AC20)

Mechs

st Mech0 = "Locust"
st Mech1 = "Flea"
st Mech2 = "Firestarter"
st Mech3 = "Urbanmech"
st Mech4 = "Jevelin"

Pilots

st Pilot0 = "PMWMeat"
st Pilot1 = "PMWFlash"

FITend

Here you can add in any components/mechs/pilots you want to be able to purchase in this mission.

Components are tricky if you are unfamiliar with Magic's list. Read thru the purchase.fit files with the most components so you know the ID number for the part you want.

*** NOTE: Number the Components. Do not repeat a Component number.
The repeated # will cut the list off and make other components below the repeat unavailable to purchase.

You can add Mechs from my reference list at the top. For example, add a Cauldron Born Clan Mech.

st Mech0 = "Locust"
st Mech1 = "Flea"
st Mech2 = "Firestarter"
st Mech3 = "Urbanmech"
st Mech4 = "Jevelin"
st Mech5 = "Cauldron"

*** NOTE: Do not repeat a Mech# or it will cancel out the Mechs.

For Pilots, simply add the name of the pilot you want in the same way. For example, add Twitch.

st Pilot0 = "PMWMeat"
st Pilot1 = "PMWFlash"
st Pilot2 = "PMWTwitch"


*** NOTICE ***
If you do not make the changes to the purchase file for the following mission, your changes will not be available beyond this one time. Add the changes you make to all of the following purchase files.

I've tried with the original campaign and it works there as well.