72 replies to this topic

[Lyoto Machida]

Kyone Akashi, on 24 September 2013 - 06:42 PM, said:

As fate would have it, I had the exact same thought and am currently "learning the ropes", so to speak. The Dragon has one big weakness, quite literally - its center torso is so large it is very hard to miss even for Steiner rookies. On the other hand, this and its considerably smaller side torsos make it almost a no-brainer to install an XL-Engine, which not only yields more tonnage to field awesome weaponry but also allows a skilled pilot to make better use of the Dragon's biggest advantage - its speed.

Personally, my recommendation is the DRG-1N with an LB10 scatter-shot Autocannon in the right arm, an Extended Range Large Laser in the left torso, and two SRM4 missile packs in the center torso. I have also installed a single Flamer in the left arm, as I ended up with roughly a ton to spare and figured that a proper Dragon also needs to spit fire. I do not get to use it very often, but I like to think that it has at least served to irritate a few of my enemies.

My tactic is to first remain in cover and snipe away with the large laser at targets of opportunity - the shoulder location permits the large laser to be fired from a position very close to the cockpit, so that most of its profile may remain protected when peeking over a ridge. Once an opportunity presents itself, preferably when the enemy is in disarray, I charge, using the engine's power to close the distance and let loose with autocannon and missiles.

If these charges are timed right, they can be as enjoyable as they are challenging. For a 'Mech of the Heavy class, the Dragon seems very vulnerable, but all this means is that it takes a more cautious and experienced pilot.

I have named my Dragon "Ryoko".

Thell, on 23 September 2013 - 03:08 PM, said:

I feel like as a Kurita fan that I dishonor my family by not having a Dragon. I wonder if I should get one and which one...

As someone with a screen name from a real life person whose nickname is "The Dragon," I feel added pressure to pilot a Dragon well. The Flame was the first hero mech I actually bought (and after a long time). Equipping one with an XL360 or XL320 can make for a good mix of speed and firepower. Hope they reinstate knockdowns again at some point...

[Lord Ikka]

I'm thinking about getting a couple of Dragons. Had fun with them in Closed Beta, but haven't really played them since. Maybe during my 12-Mech level up madness that is the Phoenix Project I'll get enough c-bills to buy some. Already got rid of 2/3 of my Quickdraws, so mastering some Dragons shouldn't be too hard.

[ManaValkyrie]

I generally use my fang and flame with the same weapons build, 2 large lasers and a guass rifle, even with the changes to the guass rifle, the dragon makes an extremely good skirmisher, not a sniper but a skirmisher, the guass rifle is good from range to whittle down opponents armor and the large lasers are good for fast in flank attacks.

Generally I find that its a good all around damage build, not supposed to go toe to toe with enemy mechs, but to hit and run.

[Mr Fluffins]

No one mentioned the panther? Damn near exclusive to the combine

[Kyone Akashi]

Well, give us a sign when you see it in the shop, be it for C-Bills or MC! I'm sure some of us would embrace the opportunity to pilot the type of 'Mech that carried Minobu Tetsuhara and Katana Tormark into battle.

[IAN WAGNER]

Glad to see the Hatamoto series were mentioned, but a 3050 era assault was overlooked.. the Mauler! And in the medium catagory, the Wolftrap.

[Timuroslav]

Ah, yes, the "Wolf Trap" We call that the Tiger Toh-ra as in Tora Tora Tora XD.

[DevlinCognito]

Also, generally speaking, the letter after the chassis code denotes what House uses it, or at least came up with the variant.

AS7-D = Davion
AS7-K = Kuritan
SHD-5M = Marik

This can lead to confusion when, as previously mentioned, a factory world is taken by an opposing House. The well known Davion Victor, is now produced by St Ives and Kurita due to the vagaries of war so different Houses gain access to them too.

[Adridos]

DevlinCognito, on 22 November 2013 - 11:11 AM, said:

Also, generally speaking, the letter after the chassis code denotes what House uses it, or at least came up with the variant.

AS7-D = Davion

.... Yep, generally speaking, you don't want to rely on this when it comes to Star League era mechs.

Take HBK-4G, for example... or even the basic AS7-D, as it is not in any way, shape, or form a Davion mech. It is a House Cameron design built by the remainder of their nation (as the mech itself was conceived after the massacre of Camron family).

[DevlinCognito]

Aye, hence the 'generally'.

My bad on the Atlas, complete brain fart.

[Ohari]

Well to be perfectly honest you could play any mech. Even if your going for the RP aspect of things. The reason being is you can RP it as you've battled and defeated some enemy you simply captured the worthy opponents mech and retooled it to your liking. This has occured countless times in lore. Another is to simply say your house/faction captured a planet that had a factory making the mech your driving.

As far as mechs that are traditionally Kuritan..thats been covered here already. Dragons, Kintaros and a spattering of other mechs.

Edited by Ohari, 22 November 2013 - 11:56 AM.

[Feylan]

I would hand any amount of money over for the Marauder!

[Timuroslav]

Most of the Atlas and Almost all of the Victors are Manufactured in the Draconis Combine. The only real Atlas the Combine doesn't have is the Atlas-RS which is in the R.S. Republic, and that Atlas is a Piece of Poo anyway.

Actually, the Kintaro's are Star League technology
Kin(Gold) Taro({old school way of saying} boy) literally means golden Boy
so the Hero Mech Golden Boy is completely Redundant...lulz

No the Letter does not mean where it's from, it could mean anything even who the Manufacturer or the world it was created on.

Edited by Timuroslav, 23 November 2013 - 10:33 AM.

[DevlinCognito]

Timuroslav, on 23 November 2013 - 10:29 AM, said:

No the Letter does not mean where it's from, it could mean anything even who the Manufacturer or the world it was created on.

Oh really? Lets look at the Wolverine. The WVR-6K, 8K, 9K are all Kuritan versions (although at least one of the factories is now held by Davion). The 7D, 8D and 9D are all Davion versions used by the AFFC, the 7M, 8M and 9M are all variants made/used by Marik.

I know this isn't always the case as demonstrated by the Banshee. The BNC-3M and 3Q was made by the Cappellans, the BNC-3MC is used by the Magistracy of Canopus, while the BNC-3S, 5S and 6S are produced by Steiner, but that is why I said generally and not always. Quite often the letters are just used to denote upgraded mechs that a House has developed, not new builds.

[Timuroslav]

DevlinCognito, on 23 November 2013 - 11:30 AM, said:

Guess Again, silly goose.

[Kyone Akashi]

Production code prefixes seem to differ between the developers - there is no general, universal system on what means what, or if there is, it is extremely hard to decode. Each manufacturer having a different system would mimic real life practices, however; Bell had a habit of labeling its helicopters alphabetically in a clear succession (UH-1A, UH-1B, UH-1C, ...) whereas MilMi applied alphabetical characters denoting the role a variant was specialised for (Mi24-R for Reconnaisance, MI24-PS for Search and Rescue, Mi24-K for Corrector / dedicated artillery spotter).

Looking at the Inner Sphere BattleMechs, I see "K" 'Mechs not produced by Kurita, and a lot of "D" 'Mechs which are, so the letter at least does not have to mean the House which invented it. Depending on the manufacturer, perhaps it may, but obviously it is not a requirement. Likewise, the lettering is no guarantee for the order of succession. Both the Jenner C and the Jenner D were built by Luthien Armor Works, yet the D is the older design. We can only speculate on what the "D" means.

Examples of possible meanings for a few 'Mechs I could come up with:

JR7-A - 1st production model (A)
JR7-C - C3 slave variant
JR7-C2 - upgrade of JR7-C (model C version 2)
JR7-K - CASE protected (CASE spoken like KASE - the letter C was already taken by the C3 variant)
JR10-X - Experimental

CN9-A - 1st production model (A)
CN9-Ar - refit variant of model A
CN9-AH - Heavy (AC/20) variant of model A
CN9-AL - Laser variant of model A

[Strum Wealh]

Kyone Akashi, on 23 November 2013 - 05:41 PM, said:

Production code prefixes seem to differ between the developers - there is no general, universal system on what means what, or if there is, it is extremely hard to decode. Each manufacturer having a different system would mimic real life practices, however; Bell had a habit of labeling its helicopters alphabetically in a clear succession (UH-1A, UH-1B, UH-1C, ...) whereas MilMi applied alphabetical characters denoting the role a variant was specialised for (Mi24-R for Reconnaisance, MI24-PS for Search and Rescue, Mi24-K for Corrector / dedicated artillery spotter).

Looking at the Inner Sphere BattleMechs, I see "K" 'Mechs not produced by Kurita, and a lot of "D" 'Mechs which are, so the letter at least does not have to mean the House which invented it. Depending on the manufacturer, perhaps it may, but obviously it is not a requirement. Likewise, the lettering is no guarantee for the order of succession. Both the Jenner C and the Jenner D were built by Luthien Armor Works, yet the D is the older design. We can only speculate on what the "D" means.

Examples of possible meanings for a few 'Mechs I could come up with:

JR7-A - 1st production model (A)
JR7-C - C3 slave variant
JR7-C2 - upgrade of JR7-C (model C version 2)
JR7-K - CASE protected (CASE spoken like KASE - the letter C was already taken by the C3 variant)
JR10-X - Experimental

CN9-A - 1st production model (A)
CN9-Ar - refit variant of model A
CN9-AH - Heavy (AC/20) variant of model A
CN9-AL - Laser variant of model A

Though, the Catapult's common CPLT-C1 model (introduced in 2561) predates (both in-universe and IRL) the CPLT-A1 model (introduced in 2563), and the JagerMech's common JM6-S model (introduced in 2774) predates (both in-universe and IRL) both the JM6-A model (introduced in 2778) and the JM6-B model (introduced in 3043).

Also (and from an in-universe perspective, rather than the order in which materials were printed IRL), the K-series Jenners predates the C-series; Grace Shiro piloted the prototype for the K-series (which actually lacked CASE, which had been recovered by the Combine in 3036) in 3039 and the production version appeared in 3047, while the first of the C-series did not appear until 3050.

[Arcadies]

I know people have mentioned it, but I think it needs repeating.

The Highlander was almost exclusively a DCMS mech in 3050.

During the Succession Wars, most Highlanders, and all their factories were totally destroyed. Production didn't restart until after the Helm Memory Core, and even then, I think only like 10 to 20 were built a year, and split between Liao, Steiner, and Davion. Even then, these were crappy Highlanders because they could only use the limited tech they had access to.

So, Highlanders were barely even seen... until the War of 3039. Steiner and Davion teamed up to beat on Kurita, and thought they would get away with it. But Kurita had secretly made a deal with ComStar and got all sorts of Star League technology as part of it. This included a massive amount of Star League Highlanders.

[Strum Wealh]

Arcadies, on 26 November 2013 - 05:57 PM, said:

I know people have mentioned it, but I think it needs repeating.

The Highlander was almost exclusively a DCMS mech in 3050.

During the Succession Wars, most Highlanders, and all their factories were totally destroyed. Production didn't restart until after the Helm Memory Core, and even then, I think only like 10 to 20 were built a year, and split between Liao, Steiner, and Davion. Even then, these were crappy Highlanders because they could only use the limited tech they had access to.

So, Highlanders were barely even seen... until the War of 3039. Steiner and Davion teamed up to beat on Kurita, and thought they would get away with it. But Kurita had secretly made a deal with ComStar and got all sorts of Star League technology as part of it. This included a massive amount of Star League Highlanders.

Operation Rosebud gave the Combine a supply of HGN-732s (along with some of the other variants), but Hollis in the CapCon has been refurbishing Highlanders and producing new-construction units under license from StarCorp through the Succession Wars, with StarCorp producing limited runs in Lyran space since the mid-3030s.

Quote

Hollis Incorporated suggested a licensing proposal to StarCorps involving rebuilding destroyed chassis almost from scratch while using readily available technologies. StarCorps readily accepted the proposal - and a hefty licensing fee.
Hollis continued to custom-build the 733 models until the Fourth Succession War, when its license was revoked. With the capture of the Corey production line and the discovery of the Helm Memory Core, StarCorps was able to begin producing 733 refits on Son Hoa by the mid-3030s.

-----

Both the Capellan Confederation and the Lyran Commonwealth use the Highlander in small numbers, as the production lines only churned out less than a dozen a year in either facility. It was with great surprise, then, when during the War of 3039 the Draconis Combine fielded 733 Highlanders in moderate numbers alongside smaller amounts of the original 732 models.

(TRO 3039, pg. 276)

The Combine may have fielded Highlanders in greater numbers than either the Lyrans or the Capellans individually in 3039, but the Highlander didn't appear in "massive amounts" in the DCMS, nor was it anywhere near "exclusive" to the Combine, and there is little or no evidence to suggest that the numerical disparity continued until 3050 (especially since the Combine has no known HGN production facilities of their own; they'd have to buy from either the Capellans or the Lyrans to acquire more).

Edited by Strum Wealh, 26 November 2013 - 07:31 PM.

[Arcadies]

Strum Wealh, on 26 November 2013 - 07:30 PM, said:

Operation Rosebud gave the Combine a supply of HGN-732s (along with some of the other variants), but Hollis in the CapCon has been refurbishing Highlanders and producing new-construction units under license from StarCorp through the Succession Wars, with StarCorp producing limited runs in Lyran space since the mid-3030s.
The Combine may have fielded Highlanders in greater numbers than either the Lyrans or the Capellans individually in 3039, but the Highlander didn't appear in "massive amounts" in the DCMS, nor was it anywhere near "exclusive" to the Combine, and there is little or no evidence to suggest that the numerical disparity continued until 3050 (especially since the Combine has no known HGN production facilities of their own; they'd have to buy from either the Capellans or the Lyrans to acquire more).

The Highlander doesn't even appear in the unit tables for Steiner or Davion in the War of 3039. It does for Kurita units.

And Hollis wasn't producing new construction units. They were refurbs of destroyed Highlanders. Again, after the Helm Data Core, Hollis lost the license. StarCorp was only producing less than a dozen Highlanders a year from mid 3030s to 3057. And this is coming off Highlanders being wiped out in the Succession Wars with Hollis only resurrecting a few here and there. At 3039, adding in new production, existing, and Hollis restored Highlanders, there were probably less than 100 in the hands of all houses combined outside Kurita.

Whereas the DCMS was gifted with several hundred Highlanders from ComStar. These, along with Chargers and Hatamotos comprised AT LEAST a quarter to a third of all assault mechs in the DCMS A* rated regiments in the War of 3039. All Genyosha regiments, all Ghost regiments, all Ryuken regiments were A* rated.