9 replies to this topic

[Saiphas Cain]

With the holidays approaching and the likelihood of MC discounts I'm looking into tricking out my prime earners with some decent camouflage patterns and colors. Flashy is easy, but blending in is hard. Up to now, I've kept everything stock in the assumption that if I look like everyone else I won't draw undue attention but I'm looking for advice on colors and patterns to make mechs look less visible, or even worse, to make mechs look like other mechs and throw people off given the targeting info delay. Does anyone have any experience to share?

[Gauvan]

In my experience most camouflage patterns don’t provide as much benefit as neutral, darker colors do if your goal is to reduce your visibility. Just some random thoughts:

Don’t worry about blending into snow, none of the snow maps really lend themselves to visibility reduction. Also, light colors will make you pop on most other maps.

I think it can be quite effective on smaller ECM mechs to go with a low-contrast paint scheme--on a lot of maps such a mech will be hard to spot against a shadowed or dark background. I like greys for this, but any dull, muddy color should work.

Don’t choose a paint scheme that highlights your center torso. A lot of the default schemes let you do this and it just makes targeting the CT easier.

Bright, busy, paint schemes will make your mech pop against the background and will draw attention. Usually not a good idea.

I love the idea of dazzle camo and use it on a lot of my assault mechs. I doubt it provides much benefit but I like the history and theory.

Finally, even the best low-contrast paint on a small ECM mech in good cover is of limited gameplay benefit. If you want to make your mechs look cool or to follow a personal aesthetic, I say go for it.

[The Great Unwashed]

I like the look of dazzle, even though it didn't distract people manning the optical rangefinders much (if at all!). Dazzle made the ship stand out much more at nearly all ranges. I suppose for MWO it will work more or less along similar lines. I never notice the camo of other people, only my team mates when walking to the fight.

For some maps with low visibility (Forest, Terra, HPG), darker colors + ECM work really well. An overall dark grey works well, especially at longer ranges where thermal vision no longer works (for the love of mech, why?). I often get shot by these mechs before I spot them.

In their wisdom, PGI decided that all clan primes and heroes cannot have a custom camo, other wise I'd never stop playing this lovely pattern

Edited by The Great Unwashed, 25 November 2014 - 12:01 PM.

[HlynkaCG]

If you're only painting your top earners and have enough mech bays to be confident that you will not be selling any of them I would recommend using one-shot patterns over full unlocks as they will be much easier on your wallet.

As for practical cammo...

I agree Gauvan with on that none of the snow maps really lend themselves to visibility reduction and as such recommend focusing on earth tones. Grays Browns, and Tans are your best bet as they will give you the lowest contrast against the highest number of maps.

Gauvan also raises an excellent point about avoiding patterns that accentuate your CT or primary weapons mounts.

Personally I use Mountain line on my lights as most of them lack sufficient surface area for the more classic patterns to properly break up thier outlines. For my heavier mechs I tend to use Tiger-Stripe, wood-land, or Sherman with two low contrast colors for general coverage and one high contrast to help break-up my outline.

Give me a moment and I will post screen shots.

[MarineTech]

No camo color in the game is going to be perfect across every map environment, however since the game has a tendency to gray out things in the distance, shades of gray are going to be most effective in making you less distinct. They're not going to be able to do much against that big red box around you though.

One thing that camo patterns in the game CAN help you with is blur the dividing lines between your torso hit boxes. I've found that the IS Wanderer camo pattern in "Harrier" colors (Gray, green, & blue) has a tendency to make it difficult to tell where the side torsos of the mech end, and the CT begins. This can be handy when you're trying to shield an open torso location from an enemy.

[HlynkaCG]

As Marinetech said, the game has a tendancy to gray things out at a distance which is why Grays and Browns are usually the primary color in my schemes.

This is my typical "Pug Pattern" Woodland cammo, using Green Brown and Gray. It was originally optimized for Forrest Colony but works well enough on pretty much any map that is not snow-covered...



...and here are two variations of my Tiger-stripe pattern, which should give you a sense of what Gauvan and Marinetech are talking about when it comes to "de-emphasizing" or breaking up the lines of your center torso.





For brighter environments like Caustic, Viridian Bog and the Snow maps you can go with something like this, but keep in mind that you will "pop" on the more dimly lit maps.



For Hero mechs, either deck them out in Parade (Unit) colors...



...or try to hide thier specialness under a coat of basic green.




And to round things out here is my light mech mountain-line pattern...



...and my Razzle-Dazzled Ryoken.

Edited by HlynkaCG, 25 November 2014 - 02:32 PM.

[Gauvan]

Okay, you folks motivated me to break out the image editor



(A) is an example of what I'd typically run on a mech to make it visually stealthy--it's just a couple neutral grays. It's useful, I think, to bring mechs into the training grounds and see how the colors look under map lighting (.B.). I like to spend some time on mech paint and I think it is possible to have a low contrast scheme that looks nice--(C) is the default Hunchback camo with some earthtones.

(D) Is a typical dazzle pattern. The idea with dazzle camo is not to make the mech hard to see but to break up the lines and make it harder for an enemy to accurately gauge speed and direction--that's what they were trying to do with WWI ships, anyway. In MWO nobody is going to fail to spot the Atlas and everyone is going to shoot it, so making it (hopefully) harder to pick out specific locations on the mech is the goal. Does it work? Doubt it but I still like dazzle camo

Something fun to do if you are going for a distinctive look is to read up on camo patterns used historically by your country or from a military you are interested in. They are generally very different and distinctive. There are a ton of references on the web, usually for model makers. Here's an example I just found: http://www.fritzthef...camo_guide.html

Edited by Gauvan, 25 November 2014 - 03:24 PM.

[DONTOR]

Digital camo pattern, dark brown camo, light brown camo, and an off white. Now your good to go on about 2/3 of the maps.

[Tylerchu]

HlynkaCG, on 25 November 2014 - 02:27 PM, said:

...

I like how your locust is named 'murder bug'

[Saiphas Cain]

Thank you all for the advice and the screenshots. Back in the day I remember planning to set up an "urban wasteland" camo suit out of grey bits and detritus, but I remember reading somewhere that a standard ghille suit in dull grey worked better to blend, even in urban environs, than anything else that had been tested. Anything that makes my mechs even slightly harder to spot and identify is great. They'll only be invisible until they fire anyway but a split second is all it takes for first shot advantage. I've just been sniped too often at 1,200 meters in the 3L with only my shoulder and top of the cockpit exposed to think lack of camo doesn't have something to do with it. I'll have to play around with it but I'm guessing you can't apply different colors/patterns to different body parts? Wouldn't want someone doing a bright mech with dark arms to look like they've already been stripped I suppose.