35 replies to this topic

[Alistair Winter]

Just played a match on Caustic. I'm in my Locust. Suddenly, a huge lag spike hits me, and when it's over, I'm running across open territory, right in front of the enemy team. They take out one of my legs, so I figure I'm screwed, but I limp to the closest rock for cover.

An enemy Locust appears. It fires its small lasers repeatedly at my CT, then overheats and powers down. I fire my 5 medium lasers (woot) and melt both its legs, killing it instantly.

I then power down, hoping no one will notice, and I hear the foot steps of an enemy mech approaching.



It's a frickin Atlas. But my mech is probably smoking like hell, and I'm right next to the dead enemy Locust, so he walks right by me.



Then a frickin Spider jump jets and lands right in front of me. Looks around, doesn't see anything. Jump jets away.

Both teams are concentrated around the crater, so I eventually power back up, limp with my one-legged Locust up to the crater. I pop my head up, see a damaged Kintaro. Blast its CT with 5 medium lasers a few times, and it explodes. Second kill on my one-legged Locust.



Eventually, we kill the rest of the enemy team and we win the match. I only made 68 damage, so it's not like I saved the day. But getting 2 kills in a Locust feels a lot better than in most other mechs. I did save the day in a Locust earlier, actually. 2 kills and 624 damage. Sometimes both teams are almost wiped out, leaving only 2 inexperienced assault mech pilots and 1 Alistair Winter in his Locust. And then life is good.

Edited by Alistair Winter, 16 October 2013 - 06:30 PM.

[Chavette]

Lol alistair so enthusiastic he finds the time to screenshot while fighting from a legged locust, gotta appreciate the commitment to the cause.

[Alaskan Nobody]

Chavette, on 16 October 2013 - 06:30 PM, said:

Lol alistair so enthusiastic he finds the time to screenshot while fighting from a legged locust, gotta appreciate the commitment to the cause.

You would be surprised how much time you have to take screenshots while sitting there shut down
On the other hand - I record most matches (cause you never know when a good one will happen ) and I can go back through the recordings and take single frames out... now only if I can get the uploading to work so I can share them

[Vassago Rain]

Get on my level.

[Zakie Chan]

Chavette, on 16 October 2013 - 06:30 PM, said:

Lol alistair so enthusiastic he finds the time to screenshot while fighting from a legged locust, gotta appreciate the commitment to the cause.

its not like he was going anywhere.. >.>

[Veranova]

The Locusts are actually incredible mechs.
3 ML's and 2 SL's is 1 point higher Alpha than a 4ML Jenner, while also cooling itself easily, and it can do 170kph once elited.

Why wouldn't you love it?!

[Hydrophobia]

Nice story, you can really feel the fear Alistair felt sitting in his little smoking tin can while the other bigger mechs stomp past unawares

[EarlGrey83]

Nice read. The Locust is indeed a brave little mech.^^

[WarGruf]

I just had a match with my 3M and claimed TOP damage with 315. Granted its not a lot and we lost, but this thing only has 3 mediums and a Std engine in it... Can't wait to get the XL in there EPIC Ninja mech! Oh and my 1 kill was a Fatlass, Oh the JOY!

Edited by WarGruf, 17 October 2013 - 02:15 PM.

[Alistair Winter]

Nice! I'd definitely like to have more Locust Tales. Like a Locust pilot support group.

[WarGruf]

Just scored 835 damage, 3 kills, 6 assists.... This thing is unstoppable! 3Med 2Sml lazars, STD190, 10 DHS. Armour is a bit light though... Makes you fight clever

[stinkypuppy]

this reminds me of one of my favorite tactics to do in light mechs, park up beside walls and cliffs and power down so they think you died and you fell into the wall. then they wonder "what the heck" when lasers and machine-guns are burning their back.

[Johndar]

So I'm trying out my LCT-1V(P) and drop into Terra Therma. My lance is 2 other locusts and something else. They start off to the far east side of the map and start fighting a lone Jenner and I'm all like "yeah gonna get me some fried Jenner legs" when suddenly another enemy Locust joins the fight. So now we're 5 lights making tight circles in a valley east of the main crater, the Jenner goes down and we move closer to the main group.

At this point the enemy team has called in for reinforcements and a few mediums and a heavy enter the fray plus what seemed like 4 more locusts, there were locust every where, and things start to get dicey. A friendly Locust gets blasted and i'm now engaged with a raven weaving in between the bigger mechs. I'm amazed I didn't get blasted right away but some how I Wasn't dead yet. With the team mate down I felt my end was near, before the match I had unlocked the improved artillery strike and had really wanted to try it out so this seemed like a perfect chance. In a last ditch move I pointed my cross-hairs at my skinny legs and called for fire danger close and took off running.

Going full speed with explosions at my back a little message popped up that made me grin "Johndar has killed so and so"
HA! all in all I had 4 kills that round. It was a good day.

[JigglyMoobs]

Last night on Terra Therma. Conquest. 2 disconnects on the other team at the very start => enemy team is bypassing theta and running. I split off with another locust to scout towards kappa. Sure enough I see a lance of 3 or 4 enemy lights and mediums going for the cap. We run into the middle of them harassing and delaying them while calling out their position to the enemy team. I weave and jive up and down the mountain side, using my superior speed and maneuverability to dodge enemy shots left and right.....

And then I just died.

There was no warning. No hit sound. Nothing. Went straight to the death screen, which said something about getting damaged by a gauss rifle. All I could do was type a message saying "Wah??" and then go into spec, and watch the same thing happen to the other locusts on my team....

OK, I was not the locust pilot, but this is what I imagine happened to one of two or three locusts I shot in that game, each of whom instantly vaporized in a cloud of sparks and smoke on the first shot. He was pretty surprised, judging from the "wah??"

Is the stock locust armor really that bad? (They were all shot from the back)

[Not A Real RAbbi]

I was thrilled to survive my first LCT-1V(P) drop. I've been a RVN-3L driver for a while, but that's not scout work. Scouting is the only thing a Locust CAN do, and it was an experiment in just that.

So, I got in at the port end of Crimson Strait. Main body went right up the middle, and my lance was on the left end. I broke straight up the edge of the water to the second island. No contact. No big surprise, though I wonder where the inevitable enemy Locust is. Proceed on to the far left end of town, look to my right down the street, and there they are. Well, six of them. Heavy or Assault. The enemy main body. The big tree stump hid me for all of ten seconds, before the incoming LRMs alerted someone to my presence. Say, where WERE the other six enemy mechs?

Oh, y'know, a Locust and a Jenner broke out to hunt me down. And then my incoming missile warning lit up, just before they showed up. Thank the GODS for an XL190 in a 20-ton mech! So, I huffed it back to the closest of the two islands, where a friendly Cicada pilot was waiting for me to draw the lights into his sights. The next two minutes were nutty, low-firepower, high-speed dogfighting.

I wound up with assists on his kills on the Locust and Jenner. Seeing no more enemy deviation from the main body, now a cool 1500 meters away and deep in it with out team's heavies, we broke for their right flank. Back to the main street, down which I had earlier spotted their main body. We happen upon a stray SHD-2D2 missing a LOT of armor on the legs. OH, I FEEL THE NEED TO UNLEASH MY FOUR MACHINEGUNS UPON THEE! He stood no chance. Kill #1 in my shiny, new, by-then-half-unarmored Locust is scored by double-legging a Shadow Hawk.

Of course, I bumped him with my already-smoking right leg in the process. No more stompy-shooty for me. Took the low road straight to their cap. We were ahead in the kill count, 9-3 (-ish) at that point. While those last few brave, doomed mechwarriors duked it out for that last shimmer of hope, I cracked open a cold one on their cap with their women. "Can every mech outrun LRM-20s, RAbbi?" "Just me, baby. Just me."

Edited by TheRAbbi, 19 October 2013 - 07:23 AM.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

Gotta say, I'm really loving the LCT-1V(P)! Running it on max armor, XL190, 4xMG (2t), MPL, with iUAV and ASR modules. Will probably swap the UAV for seismic soon, but otherwise it's been SO much fun!

With the exception of Terra, Tourmaline, and Caustic, I can run and hold-down the MPL all match long and never overheat. That's on single heat sinks! Even on the hot maps, I'll get 9 or 10 shots in a row before I have to think about heat.

MGs are a little more buff than they had been for most of the last year, especially against internals. I timed it in training grounds: 24 seconds to strip the armor off a leg on a stock AS7-D. Less than half of that to take the leg off once the armor's gone. Jenner CT internals? Less than 4 seconds to die.

So, the Locust's role is clear. Sprint out to an Observation Post (OP) to fix the enemy. Don't engage anything if you don't have to. Keep enemy pursuers in the open for friendly LRMs to target. Only join the fray if/once the stripped components start to pile up, at which point you can make a HUGE difference with speed and MGs.

One or two more matches to basic-up my 1V(P), then it's on to my laser boat.

[Lord Ikka]

@ JigglyMoobs- Yes, it is. Depending on the variant/torso, you only get 2-4 points on a stock Locust rear armor. With an internal structure of 10 I believe, a guass round would easily blow through the paper-thin rear armor and kill the Mech. Hell, I was hitting Locusts the first night with my Shadowhawk's AC5 and leaving their rear left/right torsos in dark orange.

[Vanguard319]

JigglyMoobs, on 18 October 2013 - 12:35 PM, said:

Last night on Terra Therma. Conquest. 2 disconnects on the other team at the very start => enemy team is bypassing theta and running. I split off with another locust to scout towards kappa. Sure enough I see a lance of 3 or 4 enemy lights and mediums going for the cap. We run into the middle of them harassing and delaying them while calling out their position to the enemy team. I weave and jive up and down the mountain side, using my superior speed and maneuverability to dodge enemy shots left and right.....

And then I just died.

There was no warning. No hit sound. Nothing. Went straight to the death screen, which said something about getting damaged by a gauss rifle. All I could do was type a message saying "Wah??" and then go into spec, and watch the same thing happen to the other locusts on my team....

OK, I was not the locust pilot, but this is what I imagine happened to one of two or three locusts I shot in that game, each of whom instantly vaporized in a cloud of sparks and smoke on the first shot. He was pretty surprised, judging from the "wah??"

Is the stock locust armor really that bad? (They were all shot from the back)

Yeah, it's a mech you have to keep moving in, you don't have the tonnage to carry heavy armor, so a direct hit is liable to crater you.

[Vanguard319]

I've got a story to tell. The first time I piloted my Locust, I was on Crimson Strait, and scouting ahead. Instead of making a direct beeline for their base, I decided to take a swim near that island in the harbor. Someone must have noticed me because the whole team opened up on me. In any other mech, I'd have been dead in seconds, but being as small and fast as I was, I ran through death itself, and wasn't hit once. I then stayed in the water and let them shoot LRMs at me while my team hit them. It was a good strategy, though we did lose by a short margin.

[Agryfvar]

I was running my Locust, LCT-3M on the Forest Colony map. I pulled myself down the hill and into the water on the far side of the wrecked ship, my sensors picked up a blip already engaged by my allies. I paused a moment taking cover behind a large rock formation in the middle of the river. Being a recon mech I moved to flank the enemy to give myself a good point to spot for my allies.
The next moment I am struck. My mech explodes in a shower a white sparks, tossed like a rag doll that's been dumped down the stairs. There is not a switch I can flick nor button I can press to save me. My mech's nuclear fire goes out and the sky fills my view as it falls over backwards and crashes into the water. Only thing left now is smoking remains of my poor Locust.
A double Gauss hit to my center torso, backed up by a large laser snuffed out my mech a meager 47 seconds into combat. The impact so hard it stopped my running mech in its tracks, flipping it over on its back and shoving it backwards through the water.

There was nothing on my sensors and nothing that I could see I still have no idea where the shots came from.

My team lost this Assault with a score 2/12, I was just the first to die.

My next battle this time in my LCT-3S on the Crimson Straight, same side as the guy who killed my other Locust.
I conducted recon near the shipping platform ducking in and out of pylons hearing the sounds of combat above me.
As the base capture warning pops up I turn and run, full tilt towards the base rounding a large tree leaping over boulders I lock my target and before I even have the information on my target I'm firing my medium laser and jink to evade the return fire of one medium and four small lasers.
I am now in a turnfight with another Locust, sprinting at full speed, locked in a death spiral that only one of us will be walking away from. I'm vary my speed bringing my enemy into full view I fire again waiting for my missiles to lock before launching another volley towards my enemy.
With water splashing over my windscreens I fight to keep that bright red reticle on my foe, beams flash past me bright red followed by that larger green one sweeping across my view. Pulling up onto land we continue our dizzying battle getting some clean shots at each other before I Iost my lock and we end up back in the water. I managed to hold my turn tighter regaining the lock and firing again my beam flying into the center of my enemy until a large puff of black smoke billows around them, my lock flickers and is lost as my enemy dies completely submerged in red water.
I pull back up onto land and check my mech over. Minor damage over my entire mech I was peppered by his shots while mine all went for his core. I continue forward now, no sounds of battle anywhere around me I pass by buildings to see an Atlas striding down the road and I make for the water heading towards the island. Looking up I see the enemy base it nearly completely captured and after passing back into the water and rising on the other side I still have no contacts when I see the base capture warning pop up. I make a break for the enemy base using the outskirts to avoid any contact hoping my allies are still out there fighting.
I barrel around the corner and passed a large rock outcrop aiming right at the enemy base, I suddenly register a contact, an enemy standing guard and as they pass into view I see it's a Shadow Hawk, battle damaged but still functional. I squeeze my triggers first my laser seeking his heavily damage torso as they return fire. An explosion rocks my little Locust as I lose my left leg. My mech hobbles forward on one good leg as I fire off my missiles and medium laser only to have my mech taken out from under me by the full firepower of that mech. And as the flaming wreckage of my once swift battlemech comes crashing down on the enemy's very doorstep I realize that I was the last mech standing for our side.

My first fight I was the first to die and in my second I was the last.

One thing is clear, I still have a lot to learn about piloting a Locust.