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Tip of the day for May 27th, 3050.
Conquest mode is more profitable for less skilled players.
If you are not great at the game yet, and average less than 200 damage a match, or frequently die early in a match, you can make more C-Bills in the Conquest game mode than you can in Assault.
This is because in Conquest, you earn C-Bills for resources collected. In Assault, as soon as you die, your C-Bill earnings stop. In Conquest, even if you die early, you will get C-Bills for all the resource points your team collects in the match. So if you are having trouble earning C-Bills in Assault, head on over to Conquest.
Note: Assault mode is more profitable for players of higher skill levels.
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Tip of the day for May 28th, 3050.
Contrary to popular belief, ammo explosions are a relatively minor risk in most cases.
First, all ammo has 10 health, and only takes up one critical slot, and it only has a 10% chance to explode when destroyed, so it is actually somewhat rare for ammo to be critically destroyed by something other than an AC/10, AC/20, PPC, Gauss, or the loss of the mech component it is located in.
It turns out that despite what I heard, people have evidence of Ammo absolutely causing higher damage than indicated above. Ammo explosions can really ruin your day, but again are quite rare, and are often a moot point because...
Finally, as most people know, critical hits only occur once the armor of a section is gone. And if the enemy is doing enough damage to an unarmored torso or leg to cause an ammo explosion, that section is probably about to go boom anyway.
Now this tip does not mean CASE is not a good idea in a side torso that stores large cannon ammo, or that you should load a ton of AC/20 ammo in your cockpit. But if you keep 4 stacks of SRM ammo in your side torso, next to your XL engine and two double heat sinks, ammo explosions are going to be an insignificant factor in your matches.
Note: Thanks to Koniving for providing proof that ammo explosions CAN cause a lot of damage.
Bonus Tip: Don't story ammo in your arms, especially if you have an XL engine. You can't use CASE in your arms, and if your arm gets shot off each ammo bin has a 10% chance to go boom, which will then damage your side torso, potentially taking our your XL engine and killing you.
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Tip of the day for May 29th, 3050.
Don't run away, run around.
Don't you just hate it when you are out for a stroll in your Jenner on a lovely day, an round a corner to come face to face with three enemy Atlases? When you have 100 tons of weapons pointed at your 35 ton mech, your first instinct may be to turn around and run in the opposite direction. But fight that urge, because all that will do is give the enemy an easy shot at your backside. Instead take a sharp left or right hand turn and circle the enemy to force them to take a moving shot. Fight the urge to look at them so they can only hit your leg or arm instead of your torso. Then keep moving till you find cover to put between yourself and them, before turning to flee.
It may not save you from a streak cat, but it takes a good aim to hit a target moving laterally at 150KPH, make them work for it.
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Tip of the day for May 30th, 3050.
The XL300 engine probably the most versatile engine in the game.
As you build your mech collection, you will find the XL300 invaluable. This is because it fits in 52 of the 75 current mech variants, and since XLs are very expensive, it's nice to have one that fits a wide range of mechs. It in an excellent engine to build around.
You can buy directly for 4.9 million C-Bills. Another way to acquire it is to buy a mech that it comes already installed in. It comes in the CN9-D, TBT-3C, Jenner F© and the AS7-K. While I would not recommend the AS7-K, the other variants are good mechs. These mechs have expensive price tags because of the XL300, but if you think you may be buying them at some point anyway, it's good to pick one up sooner rather than latter to get access to the fantastic XL300.
Note: Thanks to Aym for pointing out the Jenner F©.
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Tip of the day for May 31th, 3050.
Fine tune how much ammo you carry on your mech.
One of the easiest places to optimize your a mech's build is in how much ammo it carries. If you carry to much ammo, you are simply wasting tonnage better spent elsewhere. And of course to little ammo will turn your heavy ballistic or missile weapons into paperweights in the middle of a match. But how do you determine how much ammo to use?
A good rule of thumb is you should rarely run out of ammo, but it should still happen on occasion. If you never, ever, run out of ammo, that means you are wasting tonnage that could be devoted to more speed, heatsinks, or larger weapons elsewhere. Everyone will have that odd 1 out of 50 match where they get to shoot at target after target and take way more shots then they typically do. If you build your mech based on having enough ammo for that one match, you are reducing your performance in the other 49 matches. In that rare 1 in 50 match, you should be conserving the last of your ammo for sure shots, rather than counting on "spare" ammo.
Another factor to consider is your performance with your ammo dependent weapons. For example, if you run a Medium Laser + 2xSRM6 Hunchback 4SP, how much ammo you load should depend on your skills. If you are good at aiming lasers and heat management, drop a ton of SRM ammo for a 5th laser. But if you have trouble landing good laser shots, you may get more mileage out of an extra ton of SRM ammo instead of a hard to manage 5th laser.
A final consider is whether you should have that ammo dependent weapon on your mech at all. Is it worth it to you to run a ballistic weapon when the same tonnage could support an ERPPC and extra heat sinks? The answer depends on your mech, skill, and play style. Just avoid the trap of trying to use hard points just because they are there.
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Tip of the day for June 1st, 3050.
Hills are your friend.
The two things that keep you from a sudden and explosive death in MechWarrior Online are movement, and cover. Cover is ideal, since the enemy can't shoot through an intervening building or rock. But sometimes you get caught at close range by a mech (or several) that outguns you, and you just need to survive until you can escape or get help.
In that situation, you need to maximize the effectiveness of your movement to keep the enemy from doing to much damage. Staying at top speed is important, but it's not always enough. Elevation, whenever it's available, can make the difference between life and death. By moving up or down a slope relative to the mech shooting at you, it causes them to have to adjust their aim up and down as well as left and right. It can also protect you from their torso mounted weapons, which generally have a very limited up and down range. Not only that, but some mechs will lose sight of you altogether. The Dragon, for example, can't visually see a mech standing on a hill just below it.
When you have the option to go up or down a slope relative to your attacker, up is ususally the best choice. This most quickly puts you out of their vision, and once you reach the top of the slope you can go over it to gain actual cover. Just don't run straight up or down relative to the attacking mech. Traverse the slope at an angle, because you still need to have good laterally movement to make aiming at you difficult. Effective use of slopes can make a fast moving mech an absolute nightmare to hit.
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Tip of the day for June 2nd, 3050.
Center torso is not always the best target.
Newer players learn quickly that to actually kill a mech, you need generally need to destroy its center torso. This leads to the logical conclusion that you should not waste shots on other areas of a mech, and just shoot its center torso. While true in many cases, there are a significant number of situations where that is not the best option.
The first thing to note is the armor and health varies by location on a mech. The center torso of a mech has about 32% more armor and health than a side torso, and 45% more armor and health than an arm. This means if you land all your shots, you can take off an arm almost twice as fast as you can destroy the center torso.
On many mechs, trying to destroy a side torso or arm is indeed a bad idea because the mech may still maintain most of it's firepower. But some mechs such as Yen-Lo-Wang, the non 4SP hunchbacks, and the Atlas, are very vulnerable to arm and/or torso loss. Shoot of the big right arm of a Wang, and all it has left is some torso lasers. Shoot off the tight Torso of a Hunchback or Atlas and its firepower is cut drastically.
Other mechs are vulnerable to losing a side torso because they often run XL engines. The Jagermech, for example, is often fitted with an XL because people can't resist using one as part of big firepower builds. But the Jagermech has easy to hit side torsos, and once a mech with an XL engine loses a side torso, the entire mech is destroyed.
And don't discount shooting out legs either. Lets consider the Yen-Lo-Wang again. If it is driven by a skilled pilot, they may be torso twisting to keep their left side exposed to your fire rather than their right arm. This means you have to blow off an arm and a side torso just to get to their center torso. Instead of doing that, you can destroy a leg, leaving them severely crippled and much easier to take out.
When you are new and don't know much about the various mech chassis, yes the center torso is the best target. But as you get better and more informed, you can be even more efficient in battle by carefully choosing your target location.
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Tip of the day for June 3rd, 3050
Never leave a C-Bill behind.
Did you know that if you have played the game for more than a few months, and bought more than a few mechs, you have hundreds of thousands, or perhaps even millions of C-Bills sitting around collecting dust?
All these C-Bills are tied up in the crappy weapons and gear your mech's came with; you know the stuff you ripped out straight away and replaced with new stuff to make your perfect build.
Did you buy a light mech that came with a standard 175 engine? Do you have three standard 260 engine's sitting around because you build around 250s instead? Do you have 5 unused LB 10-X ACs collecting dust? What about the massive pile of standard heat sinks that is growing larger every day.
All this stuff is worth money. And while you should not sell anything you may reasonably use in the future, even if standard heat sinks get tweaked, will you really need 200 of them? Would you ever use a standard 175 engine in any mech build? If the answer is no, sell it!
Clean house and you may just end up with enough C-Bills for a whole new mech.
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I was fairly ill the past few days and could not coalesce my thoughts. Time to catch up.
Tip of the day for June 4th, 3050.
For a light mech, it's not all about damage.
Some new players may see posts on the forums by light mech pilots getting 500-700 damage in a match and think that is typical number. The fact is getting damage in a light mech takes a lot of skill and/or a great team, and such high numbers should not be expected for new or average players. But a light mech does not have to have huge damage to be a huge asset to their team.
Light mechs have the speed to accomplish things that other mechs simply cant. You know that mech capturing your base 2 minutes into a match on Alpine, causing half your team to turn around and split up? Yeah, that's a light mech. You know that mech who made it back to base first and saved your team from an untimely loss? That was a light mech too. How about the mech that is running around the enemy backfield, being annoying and causing 3 enemy heavies to chase him, making the front line fight an easy one for your team? You guessed it.
Even if you are not playing with an organized team that will actually listen to your scouting report, and even if you have a hard time getting your Jenner past the 100 damage mark, you can still help your team win. It's on you to protect your base if no one else can make it in time. It's on you to distract the enemy and split them up. And though you may not get a lot of recognition for it, when your team wins the Conquest match because you spent the entire game capturing points, and were the last man standing as your resources hit 750, you will feel the true pride of the light mech pilot.
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Tip of the day for June 5th, 3050.
Pick your LRM targets well.
When it comes to slinging Long Range Missiles, all targets are not equally vulnerable. Many players, new and old alike, mistakenly thing that LRMs are perfect homing weapons that unerringly hit their target unless blocked by cover. This is definitely not the case, and if you fire your LRMs at any old target you will be handicapping your missile performance.
The first rule of LRM targeting is, the slower the better. When you have multiple targets to choose from, slow heavy and assault mechs are your best bet. This is because their slow movement will prevent them from easily taking cover or out running your missiles. Missile tracking, even with Artemis and TAG, is not perfect; beware of fast moving targets. A mech moving at 80+KPH (typical medium mech speed) will be able to avoid some of your missiles. A mech at 120+KPH will often avoid all of your missiles, which will not be able to turn fast enough to keep up.
The second rule is, watch for AMS. If you fire a salvo of 30 missiles at a target, and see 2-3 AMS systems hitting your missiles along the way, you should probably pick another target. A single AMS may not impact your missiles to much, but more than one will quickly turn your salvo from a boulder to a pebble.
The final rule is, think 5 seconds ahead. When you fire your missiles, you have to be thinking about the future state of your target, not their present state. Yeah that Cataphract is in the open now, but is he moving toward cover already? Sure that Atlas D-DC may have had his ECM knocked out by a PPC, but odds are it will be back on before your missiles arrive, and if he is moving, they will miss.
Even with great target selection, you should only expect between 45-65% of the missiles you fire to actually do damage. But pushing that number up as high as possible can make a big difference.
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Tip of the day for June 6th, 3050.
Use weapon systems and equipment that complement each other.
When you are working on a mech load out, don't just slap weapons on where ever they fit, plan ahead based on your weapon groups and intended play style with the mech. Some weapons and equipment naturally work well together, while others can be tricky to combine.
For example, Gauss and ERPPCs mix very well. They are both weapons with similar projectile speed and ranges, and the low heat of the Gauss helps balance the high heat of the ERPPC. The AC/5 mixes well with the AC/2 for the same reasons. Medium Lasers match well with Pulse Lasers, since they have similar ranges and the same recycle time.
On the flip side, some weapon systems are a pain to mix. If you try to fire a ballistic, laser, and SRM weapon at a moving target, they will all require a different aim to hit, meaning you will need to fire them separately. For a newer player, it is important to simplify your firing groups so you don't have to adjust your aim to much while firing weapons.
Equipment effects how well weapons work together too. In the past, for a Catapult A1 (which can carry 6 missile weapons and nothing else), to carry LRMs and SSRMs would be suicide, because any ECM mech that closed in would be un-lockable and rip you apart. But recent changes to BAP benefit both weapon systems, and let them work together. BAP extends your target lock range which helps LRMs, and counter acts ECM in close range, which lets your SSRMs work. Artemis improves both systems as well, as do certain modules such as Target Retention. Effective combinations of weapons, equipment, modules, and play style, can make for a very effective BattleMech.
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Edited by 80Bit, 06 June 2013 - 06:45 AM.
