I suck at this game. Still enjoy the crap out of it, though. But name your rookie mistake, and I've made it (maybe even in the last week). I'm here today to name a few things you should or shouldn't do, in order to be a little more useful to your team while you learn your way around the game. This is based on me sucking at some of these things, and at least having sucked badly at others before. In no special order then:
1.) Know and stick to your role. If you're in a Locust, then going toe-to-toe with an Atlas (even if it IS almost cored and down to one ML) is not likely to end well for you. Likewise...
2.) DO NOT chase the squirrel! Unless you are a squirrel hunter, of course. If you're new, then you're NOT a squirrel hunter. At most, shoot off something heavy at the little guy to remind him that you are higher on the food chain, and let your team's lights and hunters deal with the nuisance. MANY a heavy mech pilot has been lured to his death by the siren song of the squishy little Commando. Squirrels are not your monkeys, and hunting them is NOT your circus. Most likely.
3.) KNOW YOUR ROLE! So, if you ARE in a light mech, then maybe running the squirrel off from your pals IS your business. That is, if you're timid like me and not immediately running out to BE the squirrel. In that case, make yourself useful and run him off. BE CAREFUL with squirrel hunting, though. A favorite tactic of squirrels is to lure an unsuspecting HBK or CN9 into the midst of a pack of 3-4 squirrels, behind 2 forms of cover and at least 600 meters off from the nearest support. Can you say, "Death Sentence"?
4.) Dying isn't the worst thing that can happen.
Spoiler
Ignore KDR--it's just e-peen. Watch your W/L (mine sucks as badly as my KDR). You're not going to be RamboMech, Wrecker of Faces, on Day One. Maybe not even Year One. Contribute. PUG teammates will rarely notice, but your bank account will grow fat and you'll learn a lot more. Also, damage is good but not the be-all-end-all. I once had a match win with 4 DMG and 1 kill. I got ONE shot in. Also made a ton of cash for it, because I spent the match covering buddies with ECM, countering ECM on nearby squirrels, and spotting targets (which nearly cost me being killed myself), without ever leaving my teammates to chase squirrels or vulture the badly damaged.
Edit per bad arcade kitty:
"Just try to avoid dying for nothing,
preferably killing some enemies first before you go down.
If you are surrounded and soon are about to die, press overdrive and try to take somebody with you... just don't press it too often, it sometimes lead to embarrassing deaths."
For my part (RAbbi here again), I haven't used the shutdown override since the year 2012. That was two stat wipes ago, I think. I should learn to use it. SO SHOULD YOU!
More to the topic, though, and the added emphasis is mine, AVOID DYING FOR NOTHING. Your service in the fight should have counted for something. If you out-traded, sweet. If you scored some kills, SUPER. If you scouted like a champ, and facilitated a bunch of brilliant combat, you're the bees' knees. If you did like I've done a few times, ran your Jenner down "Jenner Alley", came face-to-face with three enemy ECM Spiders, got your clock cleaned by those angry little s**tstains, and died for no good reason at all, then it kinda wasn't worth it for anyone. Might have learned a lesson about roaming Jenner Alley alone (unless you're ME), but cost your team a member without returning any real benefit (other than the realization that they're ALL next, and there's nothing they can do about it).
We all die. Let your death have meaning. And let its meaning be all that you brought to your fellow mechwarriors in your short life. (Technically, it's not death, but just ejection and relegation to the sidelines of the fight for the remainder. Mechwarriors are like pilots. Even the ones that aren't in charge are still pretty much officers, and they go to the NICE prison camps.)
5.) Being a vulture is good enough for you right now. It's nice to throw down and contribute directly to the brawl, but there's a LOT to be learned before you can do that without looking foolish (like me). So, look at enemy mechs for those that are damaged badly (internals in CT or LEGS are orange-red) and join in the focused-fire beatdown on those guys. If an enemy mech has only like 3% of its armor left, but has a weapon that can hit your friendlies, he's at least somewhat combat effective. If he's dead, he can have all the armor he wants--more salvage, more C-Bill payout for the victory. Be a VULTURE. For now, Take shots when you can, take damage never, stick to the pack, and stay OUT of friendly lanes of fire!
6.) I say again, STAY OUT OF FRIENDLY LANES OF FIRE! For the love of Kerensky, dudes, do NOT Step out in front of a friendly that's firing at an enemy (or even appears to be lining up the shot). Team damage, whether intentional or not, costs you in this game. And whether the shot hits that DireWhale right in the cockpit, or it hits that friendly Arctic Cheetah in the back and shreds his engine in one shot, it still cost a round of ammunition that your pal CAN NOT get back. Or it costs heat, that he now has to dissipate before he can try to line up another shot. CONCEPT: Firing LINES. Mechs are arranged in BREADTH, not necessarily DEPTH, and focus their fires on a group of enemy mechs from (effectively) multiple angles and ranges.
6.A.) Related to 6.) above, DO NOT butt-hump other mechs. If the mech in front of you rounds a corner or crests a ridge, and immediately spots an enemy Steiner recon lance (MW joke- four Atlases), he's gonna go full-throttle reverse ten times in ten. That's 100% of the time, for the mathematically challenged. If you're keeping a tight 20 meter interval, then you and the mech in front of you will collide. THIS CAUSES DAMAGE TO BOTH OF YOU! Being in a squishy light mech, and winding up losing half of your already-weak leg armor to a collision with a friendly before you ever even SEE the enemy, is pretty frustrating. (NOTE: I've done this before, probably many times, and to my former allies, I apologize PROFUSELY for this.) Keep a good interval. An interval that you can close to being shoulder-to-shoulder in about 3 seconds. And always know which way you go if the mech in front of you comes to a sudden halt (left? right? back home to mama?).
6.B.) Also related, stay aware of your Jump Jet capability. If you've got 'em, remember that they are a VERY valuable maneuver tool, and one that has saved my mech more times than I care to remember (most recently, against a Whale in a Cheeter, BARELY scraping out the last kill 1v1 by leapfrogging him, a kill of which I am rather proud). Don't land on your buddies, as this will damage you both (but landing a jump on an enemy mech's head is pretty awesome, especially if it results in a kill, which I've never yet pulled off). They can be tapped to tighten your turning radius. They can get you out of sticky situations in a hurry. Learn 'em.
7.) Unless you're playing an LRM boat, DO NOT shoot over your friendlies' heads. This goes along with the above, in picking fire lanes. The guy in front MAY also have JJs, or he MAY be coming up a hill, or you MAY be coming DOWN a hill, etc. Friendlies don't appreciate having their back armor stripped by other friendlies. Murphy's Laws of Combat say, among other things, that there is no such thing as 'friendly fire'. That's SO true.
8.) KNOW YOUR F***ING ROLE! I can't stress this enough. Here are the common ones for newb mechwarriors, by mech weight class:
-Light: Scouting, Squirrel chaser
-Medium: Squirrel chaser, Brawler
-Heavy: Fire support, Brawler
-Assault: Any kind of fighting it chooses to do, which does not require SPEED
Spoiler
You don't brawl in a Locust, and you do not chase squirrels or scout in an Atlas (you HEAR that, Steiner?). Most of those roles are pretty easy to understand. Fire support differs from brawling/skirmishing, in that you're not trading face-to-face with the enemy, but rather, using ranged fires to damage enemies that are in contact with other friendlies (in a brawl). This is LRM boating and sniping. Typically, you'll have a decent backup weapon system, so as the ranks are thinned a bit by the brawl, you can close in and put a relatively fresh mech into the mix and still do some respectable damage. If the current kill count is 0, though, you had better have a few hundred tons of friend between you and the enemy.
Scouting is the part that a lot of pilots don't get. I'm not all that good myself, but I know what I SHOULD be doing for my team when I'm scouting. Your mission is to find the enemy. Where is he? What mechs is he bringing into the fight? How are they loaded out? Let's find a good target, in the relative open, to put TAG on, and let a friendly LRM boat (fire support mech) rain death on him. Let's sneak up within 400m and drop a NARC beacon on him, then fade QUICKLY, and laugh as he dies in a storm of lurmy deathdrops. (LRMs used to be a lot deadlier, believe it or not.) Pop a UAV over the enemies' heads (and just behind them, so as they face your teammates, they're not likely to see it hovering overhead). Maybe hide out on the other side of a wall or rock and run COUNTER ECM, so they can't hide under the invisible electronic umbrella of failed to-hit rolls. THIS is scouting at its best. It requires fast, small mechs, with goodies like TAG and NARC and ECM and the cool consumable modules. It is NOT harassing, and I recommend the new player avoid that for a while until he/she is good at scouting first.
9.) Know your maps. Testing Grounds is free. Ammo spent there costs nothing. Consumables used there are replaced for free. Nothing there affects your KDR or W/L. So go nuts. EVERY map in the real game, 12-man or CW, is available in Testing Grounds. USE IT. Smurfy has a good tool with all the maps and their spawns (including turrets, generators, etc. for CW maps) for different game modes. Reference the Smurfy map, drop into Testing Grounds on that map, and run around for an hour. Find all the best routes from spawn-to-spawn for your PUG maps. Figure out if you CAN vault the gate in your mech, and how best to attach the generators while exposing yourself to the least area of defenders' position. Have an idea of what you're doing before you ever enter the drop for real. Also...
10.) KNOW YOUR F***ING MECH! How many aplhas can you fire with that 6x cSPL ACH you're driving, before it overheats? On Alpine Peaks? On Caustic Valley or Mordor (Terra Therma, for the uninitiated)? How about while jumping a lot (which you probably should be doing if you're going to alpha more than once)? Figure out what you can get away with, heat-wise. Go into mechlab and pull out all your extra heat sinks, then try the hot maps again. WHY? Because heat sinks can be damaged in a fight, and you want to know and recognize when you're down a sink or two, and know what that does to your firing limits for heat. THAT'S WHY!
Spoiler
Have your weapon groups memorized and committed to reflex. KNOW if those relatively low-mounted AC/10s on your Cataphract's arms will clear that little speed bump in front of you (hint: NOPE) before you pull the trigger, expend two rounds of precious ammo, incur a bit of evil heat, and reveal your presence to an otherwise-unsuspecting enemy. Also, pretty embarrassing if you're being spectated (and a Murphy's Law that I just dreamed up: If you DO do something embarrassing, it'll be while someone's spectating your cockpit, and it'll draw the attention of the BEST remaining enemy mechwarrior, and you WILL get headshotted while your weapons are cooling down to fire again, and you will die, and others will laugh).
Keybinding advice: Left-hand-side primary weapon on Left Mouse Button, right-hand-side on Right Mouse Button, anything in-between on 3-6. Fewer buttons is better. If you need to stagger firing those weapons for heat's sake, set them up in Testing Grounds to chain-fire on the same key. Need to fire them off in a hurry, heat be damned? Tapping that key in quick succession is ALMOST as good as firing them all off at once, and more than good enough for a newbie.
11.) CONFIGURE YOUR CONTROLS ACCORDING TO YOU, not according to someone in another country that you've never visited, whom you will never meet, and about whom you know ALMOST nothing at all. ;-)
12.) (I know there has been some other good advice that deserves a number, but no one GAVE any of it a number, so here we go!) EVERYTHING ADDS HEAT! Three general groups of activities (SO MUCH ROOM FOR ACTIVITIES!) you should be aware of:
Spoiler
-Movement! Going back to the year 3025, when we rolled a pair of six-sided dice for everything, standing still added 0, walking added 1, running added 2, and jumping added 3. You had at least 10 heat sinks, and they had to work with this heat as well as other things. It's more than I care to recount here, but movement cost heat. Brawling, scouting, harassing. These things will require you to move a lot, and that means more heat to contend with.
-FIRING! Oh, those glorious pew-pew thingies! Just about everything (aside from Machine Guns, which kinda suck) causes heat buildup when you fire it. Even a Gauss Rifle causes heat (though very little, especially compared to its range and damage). Having more weapons is great for inflicting severe casualties upon your enemies, but DAT HEAT THO! Sure, load up a 6x ERPPC Battlemaster (otherwise known as the Death Star). Had a [QQ] buddy did it for giggles a couple years ago, when the Phoenix mechs first released. Thing self-destructed, but the effect of those weapons downrange was rather vicious. Thing is, do you WANT to die from outgoing fire, or would you rather take your chances with incoming fire? Armor can't protect you from yourself. Manage your heat. When checking out the build in mechlab, you want to shoot for a heat efficiency number of at least 1.2. Some experienced players will go lower, especially if they're playing multi-role. For the NEW player, though, stick to 1.2 or higher. If the build you want has a higher heat efficiency number, then either add heat sinks or swap to some cooler-firing weapons. Also, USE SMURFY! Hans Davion does, and look where it got HIM!
-LOCATION! Where you are has a lot to do with your heat. The same build will run a lot cooler in Frozen City than it will in Caustic Valley. Why? The ambient air temperature is already higher in the latter, even though the tolerance for heat inside your mech hasn't changed. Hotter air means a slower rate of heat transfer, all else being the same. Don't even ask me about the physics behind HPG Manifold, with all that outer-space-is-a-vacuum stuff. Be aware of the temperature of your map (it's listed in the pre-drop lobby screen), and manage your activity accordingly. Colder maps allow you to fire more often. Hotter maps, not so much.
You can figure all this out in the Testing Grounds, by the way.
13.) LEARN YOUR MECH'S HANDLING, YO! Look, great race car drivers don't just hop in a new, different car, and go hauling tail around the track, setting records and dropping panties. They spend a TON of time practicing in that car, CAREFULLY, learning everything there is to know about it, having their crew tweak this and that to get it JUST RIGHT. A tiny bit more spark advance here, a little less spring rate there, over and over and over until the car is as ideally suited to the driver as possible. One size does NOT fit all. So, be glad you don't have to do all the work tweaking the actuators' timing in a 100-ton death machine. You just have to learn what it CAN and CANNOT do.
Spoiler
AGAIN, and I can't overstate this, GO TO TESTING GROUNDS with your cool mech. Even if it's a Trial mech. Learn those, too. You may never own the thing, but understanding how it handles, how quickly it can go from stop to full speed, how wide an arc it cuts in a turn, how quickly it can twist torso to one side or the other, makes you a better mechwarrior. It's not ALL about lining up accurate shots and pulling the pew switch. Running face-first into a hill that you CANNOT climb, while under fire, having that collision drag you to a dead stop, again WHILE UNDER FIRE, and dying for it? Priceless. Also, not profitable, and not likely a further contribution to your team's effort. Figure it out. Go walk in circles. Run in circles. Jump around (get up, get up, and get down). go from full-forward to full-reverse, and back again. See how to walk (not JJ) your way up the steep hills in Alpine Peaks, so you learn how to hillhump in your chosen machine of doom.
And back to the first reply...
14.) CONFIGURE YOUR CONTROLS! You need this to all be intuitive for you. Not for ME, not for anyone else, but for YOU. Whatever that means, do it. If you want the spacebar to fire an alpha strike, then go customize that key binding and make it happen. Don't ever use MASC? Then don't feel bad for leaving MASC unbound. You don't NEED it, per se.
Spoiler
As stated above, I use what might not be a very common configuration. On the right hand, I have a Logitech wireless trackball (they don't MAKE the wired ones any more, dammit!) with lots of buttons. LMB is group 1, RMB is 2, scroll is zoom, the third mouse button (pressing down the scroll wheel) is alpha strike. And that controls my torso/arms facing. At the left hand, I have a Nostromo N52 (older one, by Belkin I think?) (If you watched Ender's Game, you saw a bunch of these in the big final battle sequence). The D-pad is mapped to the WASD movement control. Buttons there for groups 3-5. I don't use 6, except if I'm carrying TAG, and so I set that up to toggle. Have the R key in there, as well as SPACE and the MASC button and buttons for my consumables and for ECM mode toggle and view modes. It's all in there. I don't touch the keyboard during a match. I just recently remapped the JJ button, and it's gotten me MUCH better results (now easier to use while controlling the direction of my legs and torso, making for some cool aerial stuff in an ACH).
Point is, do what works for you, controls-wise. And as advised above, try to keep clicks on your aiming hand to a minimum. If you're using a proper mouse, which I HIGHLY recommend that FPS players do not for just this reason, then every click on Mouse0 or Mouse1 has the potential to throw your aim off just a little. It can be the difference between live and die, between win and lose. I dodge this with the trackball, and with sucking at aiming anyhow. Again, individual results may vary. Do what works.
15.) KNOW THE MECHS! Where are the weapon hardpoints on a given mech? What's the difference between a LCT-3M and -3S? Which weapons are likely to be WHERE in that mech? What's the max armor for a given location on a mech? How big are the hitboxes (hint: on the JM6, they're ENORMOUS)?
Spoiler
First, you need this for your own survival. Once the enemy has closed within range, you can sacrifice that LRM launcher you stuffed in your right arm, as long as you keep those cERMLs. Know which pieces of your mech you can live without. And then, same for your targets. Know which pieces you can take off of them that will CRIPPLE them. Got a dual AC/20 Jagermech in front of you? Screw the torsos, aim for the ARMS. Or the legs, maybe (ammo in heavier mechs is usually stored in the better-armored legs). But if you knock his arms off, you take out 40 points from his alpha strike. He's a big meat shield at that point, and you can probably leave him alone to focus on more important targets. Knocking the left arm off a Centurion, on the other hand, is pretty much a waste--they don't have any weapon hardpoints there, so they often shield with the left side. In the CN9-YLW hero mech, there aren't even missile hardpoints in the left torso, so if they went with a standard engine, you can broomstick them and they're still likely toting a pair of medium lasers. You've got to know this stuff to get better at this game.
Also, as light mechs usually aren't all the well armored even at MAX, aiming for the legs is often an effective way to ruin their days. I think the max leg armor for a 35-ton mech is like 32, maybe? They'll probably carry that, too. But kill one of those legs, and that mech is limited to 40 kph (slower than most stock assault mechs). Take both out, and it's dead. If the light that's harassing you is just too fast to keep a solid bead on it, then sweep the leg (YES, SINSEI!) with laser fire and try not to let it stay behind you too long.
16.) When scouting (Damn the numbers):
-YOUR JOB is to provide information. INFORMATION! Opinions are cool, bruh, but save 'em for the after-action review (AAR). When moving to contact, or IN contact, keep it concise. Try to think in terms of what your teammates are up to, what they're wondering, what they'd most need to know about what you see.
Spoiler
US Army used to have the SALUTE (Size, Activity, Location, Unit, Time, Equipment) report. Maybe a little much info, and not so concise (Who cares if it's 228th or Lords or BSK, and how do you KNOW in-game?). Equipment can be made simpler, in our case, and Unit is irrelevant for the most part. Size: HOW MANY OF THEM? Activity: WHAT ARE THEY DOING RIGHT NOW? Location: WHERE ARE THEY RIGHT MEOW? Equipment: WHICH TYPES OF MECHS ARE THEY IN, and WHAT DO MY SENSORS SAY THOSE MECHS ARE CARRYING? Witness the birth of the SALE report! That's what your pals need to know.
Example: "Three assaults, D6, moving to D5, Foxtrot is AC/20 Atlas." Something like that.
Example 2: "One scout, ECM ER Large Spider, Hilltop in G9, observing."
Order of information doesn't matter as much as getting it all in there, preferably in a single sentence. BRIEF. Brevity is a good word for all voice comms. Keep it short and to the point. HIGH INFORMATION DENSITY. Speak clearly (accents are, of course, natural and understood to be the case for a great many players--we simply must learn to live in a global society), and understand that there's a natural pause before a voice response. Don't break up your report. Give it all at once, quickly but clearly, and give at least two seconds for a response before continuing.
If you're using only text to report, you MIGHT consider getting a mic. Or just keep it even simpler, so you can get your paws back on the controls.
But I stand by SALE as the de facto standard in MWO.
Targeting enemy mechs is great and all, and we'll all see the red dorito (thanks to whomever said that in game last night, in discussion of thermal on HPG Manifold--I never heard that term before, but I love it!) over the enemies that your sensors see. BUT, if all you do is cycle through all of those targets quickly, we'll never see what's what. It takes a second or two to get target info. So cycle through once, for effect, and then settle on one. If you've got time, give that one at least several seconds so your pals can see what he's toting. If you see the incoming missile icon over him, hold that target as long as you can. Also...
DO NOT GET SPOTTED. More advanced topic for later, but stay as out-of-sight as you can while still maintaining line-of-sight to the enemy.
-ECM is nice, but it's also a giveaway. Story time. A couple nights ago, I dropped with some [QQ] buds. We had a drop on Forest Colony. Came down to me (in a ACH) and one other pilot, versus an enemy DireWhale stripped in the CT. I had to duck out to cool down, and the Whale took out my ally. DAMN! Then, the Whale gives me the greatest gift. Rather than put his back against a cliff and wait me out, he heads out into the water, back to me! So, I go running after the Whale. BEFORE closing to w/in 240 meters, I switched ECM to COUNTER. (I loved this kill more than life itself, but that's for another day. I GOT LUCKY, too.) WHY?
Ever been jammed by ECM? You know it right away. Minimap says LOW SIGNAL. Target boxes and their red doritos start flickering. No missile locks. Etc. There's no hiding it. As a light pilot, especially a SCOUT, keeping your position a secret is the best protection you have from the enemy's fire. Hint: Friendly ECMs don't jam you, only the enemy ones. So, if you're being jammed by an ECM, you KNOW there's an enemy within ECM range of you.
IF in an ECM mech while scouting, and you NEED to close within 250 meters of the enemy, determine if he has ECM mechs in the area where you're approaching. If not, a simple switch to COUNTER should keep you hidden (as long as you also stay out of LOS). If so, you're going to be found out. I say again, THEY WILL KNOW YOU ARE THERE, THEY WILL FIND YOU, AND THEY WILL PEPPER YOU WITH HOT PPC HATRED UNTIL YOU DIE AND BURN! I'd avoid that scenario.
Also, back to keymapping, if you're flying ECM, keep the ECM mode toggle somewhere easy to reach and be ready to use it. Pay attention to what mode your ECM is in. Both modes can be VERY useful.
Oh, and PPCs shut down ECM for a few seconds if they hit. So you know.
-A scout is only useful as long as the enemy is not in LOS (line of sight, dude) for his team. Once they ARE, your job is pretty much done. You can keep watch for enemy repositioning behind cover, or for a straggler wandering off to try to flank your pals, or whatever. But your effectiveness wanes quickly once you have troops in contact (TIC). At this point, though, having a fast and relatively fresh mech, in a position well off of the axis of engagement, is a fair advantage in itself. Again, the tendency is to chase the squirrel. This is where you can BE the squirrel, at the perfect moment, to draw the enemy's attention away from your team while they crest that hill in a massive, victorious push, granting them a brief break in the enemy's fire at that critical moment in the push, and assuring them of the greatest opportunity for victory. Also, doing this will get you gutted. Ask my KDR. Worth it for the win? Maybe. I just barely survived one of these on Caustic Valley yesterday. We started on the side opposite the lake, the enemy (WTF, man?) pushed the crater and stalled inside the rim (insta-death, usually--it's HOT in there), then rolled off the non-lake side. I had run down the alley on our far right, around the enemy's back, and was spotting for LRMs (SO undetect, MUCH stealth). At some point, I announced our 2-to-1 overmatch and my intent to do something stupid, so I ran my ACH right through the middle, past a bunch with a SCR as its lightest mech, back to my pals. I lived. Hell, let's cool down and do it again! SOW CHAOS! CRY HAVOC! There I went. Wound up overheating in the middle of four enemy mechs, all of whom had a grudge now. Lucky me, my team killed off all four in the time it took to get my mech restarted. They pushed, God bless them those magnificent b*****ds... Chaos. It's what's for breakfast.
17.) Thanks to Fenrisulvyn (forgive if I misspelled, I'll edit it) for this one! SPECTATE LIKE A MU' FU'!
Spoiler
The match does not end just because you got yourself blown up. In fact, if you're new, it's likely just getting started. No offense.
When your mech is destroyed, you go almost immediately to a screen that shows how you were killed, the last status of your mech, etc. And at the bottom-right, JUST below the text line, there's a button labeled "CLICK TO SPECTATE". DO IT! DO IT NOW!
You can cycle between the cockpits of all your ally mechs still in the fight. You can experience the ongoing (probably) fight from their perspective. See what they see, watch what they do, and give some thought to why they're doing it. You see their HUD, so you see the same information they're presented about targeted enemy mechs. You see what vision mode they're in (unaided, night vision, thermal). You can see if they're under ECM cover, or if their ECM is being jammed, or if their sensors are being jammed by enemy ECM. YOU see if they've got the INCOMING MISSILE alarm. And so on. ALL as though you were driving their mech, except you're not.
USE THAT AMAZING OPPORTUNITY! You're going to usually see at least one or two very talented teammates finishing out the match. You want to find those guys/gals, get in their eyes, and observe what actions they take. Ask yourself, "Why did RAbbi try to leapfrog that 100-ton mech, rather than duck for cover and cry for mama, in his almost-legged Arctic Cheetah?" And answer yourself, "AH! It's Clear! The Dire Whale can't shoot directly overhead! It has a poor torso pitch range and speed, relative to the ACH's speed, so it would be difficult for the Whale to keep its torso-mounted weapons on RAbbi's mech when he goes vertical. Further, this MIGHT slightly disorient the enemy mechwarrior, of only for a second or two, but long enough for RAbbi to cool off his mech enough for another blast of 5 cSPLs, which might just finish off the cored Whale! I SEE IT ALL SO CLEARLY NOW!" Okay, you likely WON'T say exactly that (not out loud, but I know...). And I promise I'll quit bragging on that particular kill soon enough. STILL, that was being spectated by experienced players--some QQ teammates, and at least one other player with some considerable time under his belt. I can't say that any new players stuck around to watch or didn't.
It's tempting (and time efficient, if I'm honest) to bail out of the match as soon as you die, jump in another mech, and drop right into another match, so as to maximize your C-Bill earnings and XP accumulating. And if that's a big priority at the moment, then sure, it makes some sense. But if you want to learn what the top players (NOT me) do, pick up the little things (like effective torso twisting to spread damage, hill humping, etc.), then SPECTATE LIKE A MU' FU'! Watch what they do, practice what they do (TESTING MF'ING GROUNDS), and apply it in matches when appropriate.
Other experienced MWO players will no doubt add their own advice, pick apart my own, question the validity of my existence, condemn my mother, ridicule my tiny e-peen, and so on. It is the way of the internet. As with ANY advice you've ever read online, take it with a grain of salt. And know that for every well-intended poster, there will be at least ten trolls. I don't make the rules.
Corollary to the above, there will ALWAYS be helpful souls around, too, to shepherd us. MANY THANKS TO THEM! Special shout out to IraqiWalker for laying down the basic tags for formatting the post. It should be a bit more concise and readable now. I'm trying now to keep just a few sentences out front, and the rest under a spoiler tag, in order to keep this from scrolling your browsers into oblivion.
ALSO, and this is VERY important, this is intended for the new player. If you have 300 matches under your belt, you've MASTERED a mech, you were around in closed beta, etc., this is probably not going to be much help to you. Feel free to read anyhow, offer feedback, add your own suggestions to the new players, and especially, if you're a new player, to ask for further explanation of anything that doesn't seem right to you. PLEASE! Believe it or not, that type of information exchange is what internet forums were originally envisioned to facilitate! (Crazy talk, I know.)
Chainfiring is a no-no. Don't do it. Ever. It's better to wait a second for your mech to cool off, then fire everything in one concentrated burst than it is to sit out in the open and vulnerable so you can chainfire all your weapons, even if you're running hot.
And no, quickly tapping to chainfire is NOT almost as good as firing them all off at once. In the process of tapping, you're making your aim less steady, and you're doubling or even tripling the duration that it takes to fire off your weapons.
Chainfiring is a no-no. Don't do it. Ever. It's better to wait a second for your mech to cool off, then fire everything in one concentrated burst than it is to sit out in the open and vulnerable so you can chainfire all your weapons, even if you're running hot.
And no, quickly tapping to chainfire is NOT almost as good as firing them all off at once. In the process of tapping, you're making your aim less steady, and you're doubling or even tripling the duration that it takes to fire off your weapons.
Friends don't let friends chainfire.
I will respectfully disagree, and point out that not EVERYONE A.) uses a MOUSE (trackball FTW), or B.) has all their weapons fire buttons ON the aiming hand. Rapidly tapping the key to fire weapon groups 3, 4, 5, or 6, does exactly ZERO to affect my aim, as it's on the complete opposite hand, on the other side of the desk, with a keyboard sitting impotent between, et cetera ad nauseum.
Individual results may vary.
SO, a good point, actually, when I consider that I MAY have a rather uncommon control configuration. IF a fire group is on the aiming hand, multiple taps of that group MAY adversely affect aim.
11.) CONFIGURE YOUR CONTROLS ACCORDING TO YOU, not according to someone in another country that you've never visited, whom you will never meet, and about whom you know ALMOST nothing at all. ;-)
I will respectfully disagree, and point out that not EVERYONE A.) uses a MOUSE (trackball FTW), or B.) has all their weapons fire buttons ON the aiming hand. Rapidly tapping the key to fire weapon groups 3, 4, 5, or 6, does exactly ZERO to affect my aim, as it's on the complete opposite hand, on the other side of the desk, with a keyboard sitting impotent between, et cetera ad nauseum.
Individual results may vary.
SO, a good point, actually, when I consider that I MAY have a rather uncommon control configuration. IF a fire group is on the aiming hand, multiple taps of that group MAY adversely affect aim.
11.) CONFIGURE YOUR CONTROLS ACCORDING TO YOU, not according to someone in another country that you've never visited, whom you will never meet, and about whom you know ALMOST nothing at all. ;-)
i have my chainfire button on C, i pilot with my right hand on WASD. so it doesn't affect aiming. good point, tho.
1.) Know and stick to your role. If you're in a Locust, then going toe-to-toe with an Atlas (even if it IS almost cored and down to one ML) is not likely to end well for you. Likewise...
I took out a red-torso Zeus with three Large Lasers left in my legged Pirates' Bane this one time - zapped him in the CT, torso twisted and sacrificed my arm to the lasers, then turned back and killed him. I laughed like a maniac.
Tarogato, on 23 August 2015 - 11:31 AM, said:
Chainfiring is a no-no. Don't do it. Ever. It's better to wait a second for your mech to cool off, then fire everything in one concentrated burst than it is to sit out in the open and vulnerable so you can chainfire all your weapons, even if you're running hot.
And no, quickly tapping to chainfire is NOT almost as good as firing them all off at once. In the process of tapping, you're making your aim less steady, and you're doubling or even tripling the duration that it takes to fire off your weapons.
Friends don't let friends chainfire.
I agree. Chainfire is almost always bad. I have found it to be helpful in a small number of cases, such as to increase accuracy against fast movers - a green laser pointer that travels out to the target is visually and cognitively different than a cross-hairs. However, it must be pointed out that this particular example is simply a crutch for better marksmanship, and the very limited number of cases where chain firing is actually optimal are so rare and situational that warning players away from it is very good advice.
Like any rule created by humankind, there are exceptions to "don't ever chain fire." But you have to learn the rule and understand the principles behind it before you can recognize those cases.
I use chain fire in my cheetah when I am chasing another light mech, it keeps em running and keeps me chasing!I then use another larger group to get the job of legging him done!
scouting also includes telling the team (using VOIP or in game text chat) where the enemy are and what they are doing, for example if you see 8 enemy in d3 heading towards f5 then say "2 lances in delta 3 heading for foxtrot 5", that way your team knows where the enemy are and where they are headed, possibly allowing your team to set a trap for them. information is overpowered, as is teamwork
in a light I rarely use TAG because that tells the enemy where I am, I rarely can afford the 4 tonnes for NARC + ammo, so I usualy find the enemy, relay there location and apparent destination to the team, then try to get into a good position to put up a UAV.
I will not always use a UAV, and only about 1 game in 4 will I use a strike, I find a strike rarely pays for itself, but a well placed UAV usualy more than pays for itself.
another thing, if you are going to TAG, NARC or UAV an enemy then try to make sure it is possible for your teammates to hit the Mechs you are targeting with LRMs (e.g. not behind LRM proof cover), otherwise you are probably risking yourself for little reward. those activities are rarely totally wasted however you still want to maximize your investment, and the enemy getting hit by lots of LRMs is a good way to get a lot of reward for your risk.
UAVs will almost never pay for themselves in c-bills, any more than a strike consumable - but their impact on the game is enormous, and scales increasingly with player skill.
I chainfire on my 6 LL Stalker-4N as the primary group. I have the three on the right side as group 2 (right click) and the three on the left side as group 3 (the little "back" button just to the left of my left click) though so I can fairly easily fire all six at once if I wanted to.
Admittedly this works best when my target isn't looking at me and I'm at about 500m away, rather than attempting to facetank something
Chainfiring is a no-no. Don't do it. Ever. It's better to wait a second for your mech to cool off, then fire everything in one concentrated burst than it is to sit out in the open and vulnerable so you can chainfire all your weapons, even if you're running hot.
And no, quickly tapping to chainfire is NOT almost as good as firing them all off at once. In the process of tapping, you're making your aim less steady, and you're doubling or even tripling the duration that it takes to fire off your weapons.
Friends don't let friends chainfire.
Unless your running hot and that enemy mech wants to keep coming at you, in that case do chain fire so you don't overheat but still do some damage in return.
>-Light: Scouting, Squirrel chaser >-Medium: Squirrel chaser, Brawler >-Heavy: Fire support, Brawler >-Assault: Any kind of fighting it chooses to do, which does not require SPEED
you forgot snipers
>You don't brawl in a Locust
actually you do :3 just like in ach
most of locusts are rather close range mechs (is-meds, is-small pulses, is-srms... one version uses is-large laser though)
you just try to avoid being hit
>Dying isn't the worst thing that can happen. Ignore KDR--it's just e-peen. Watch your W/L (mine sucks as badly as my KDR).
just try to avoid dying for nothing
preferably killing some enemies first before you go down
if you are surrounded and soon are about to die, press overdrive and try to take somebody with you... just don't press it too often, it sometimes lead to embarrassing deaths
Edited by bad arcade kitty, 23 August 2015 - 03:39 PM.
Specifically about light brawling, light mechs are brilliant at this. But you need to think of yourself as more of as a force multiplier for somebody else's mech than a force all to yourself. Keep an eye on the map, and if it looks like there's a one-on-one developing, go over there and lend your buddy a hand. You've got the speed and good, sustained firepower that can make an enemy regret they ignored you, and if they pay attention to you, your buddy in the heavier mech can give him a friendly alpha to the back.
Here's the kicker with this: If you're at a lower tier, your buddy may have blundered off Rambo-styles on his own, behind enemy lines. He might actually be in a 3:1 and so deep in the dog-product that trying to help him is a suicide pact. But it does mean your team will have a local superiority, so may as well make the most of it where you can do the most good.
Using the Q button will give you the percent condition of your allies, as well as their names, which will help you determine if there's going to be anything worth saving by the time you get there.
There is nothing ignoble about "vulture" kills as you put it. In fact, it's practically a sworn light's duty, and one of the most important things you can do. If an enemy is badly damaged and trying to retreat, they're still a threat, and you can put paid to that threat by dashing out, giving him a swift (small pulse) karate chop, and dashing back to friendly lines. You've removed a threat and given a boost to team morale by eliminating an enemy. If it's just a weaponless stick, though, don't be kill-crazed unless there's no other threats to deal with.
The only thing I'd advise against doing is fighting other lights in a 1:1 scenario. There's times where you can, like twin LLAS sniper-lights, but other brawler-lights will wear you down and the winner is barely better off than the loser. If he's truly clear of friendly lines, get on back. Because otherwise odds are one of his allies is seeing a 1:1 situation and is coming to turn the tables on you.
Lately my ride of choice is a 3 mplas Spider 5D. I have a couple of things to add to this.
1) Chain fire CAN be your friend. There are three primary reasons for chain firing.
The first and most valuable is when going against a light. There is a greater chance of hitting the legs if you are constantly firing. At least nine times out of ten I can leg a light faster than I can be legged because I aim low and I chain fire my mplas. Try it, and thank me later.
The second is when facing a cored enemy. If the enemy's CT is cherry red, chain fire those weapons. It is very likely that you will take him out with less heat than a full alpha would give you.
The third and the one that I am loathe to use, although sometimes I do, is when I am already pushing overheating. It is a lot more useful to disengage, find a corner under cover and sit for a bit to cool off. Unfortunately, this isn't always an option. In that instance you may want to chain fire, but be very careful, and be prepared to do a full alpha if the enemy overheats and shuts down.
On UAV use. Try to get just behind the enemy and then drop a UAV. Preferrably when they are all sniping and sitting around with their UACs up their . . .
If you need to run into the enemy to drop a UAV, be prepared to also drop an artie or air strike. This will give the enemy something else to worry about besides the UAV, and they may not even notice it for fear from the exploding shells.
Regarding heat it is worth noting that running at full speed adds just a little bit more heat, as do using jump jets, so it is possible to cool off just a little bit faster if you move just a little slower and be careful with your jump jet use.
Regarding heat it is worth noting that running at full speed adds just a little bit more heat, as do using jump jets, so it is possible to cool off just a little bit faster if you move just a little slower and be careful with your jump jet use.
EXCELLENT POINTS!
12.) (I know there has been some other good advice that deserves a number, but no one GAVE any of it a number, so here we go!) EVERYTHING ADDS HEAT! Three general groups of activities (SO MUCH ROOM FOR ACTIVITIES!) you should be aware of:
-Movement! Going back to the year 3025, when we rolled a pair of six-sided dice for everything, standing still added 0, walking added 1, running added 2, and jumping added 3. You had at least 10 heat sinks, and they had to work with this heat as well as other things. It's more than I care to recount here, but movement cost heat. Brawling, scouting, harassing. These things will require you to move a lot, and that means more heat to contend with.
-FIRING! Oh, those glorious pew-pew thingies! Just about everything (aside from Machine Guns, which kinda suck) causes heat buildup when you fire it. Even a Gauss Rifle causes heat (though very little, especially compared to its range and damage). Having more weapons is great for inflicting severe casualties upon your enemies, but DAT HEAT THO! Sure, load up a 6x ERPPC Battlemaster (otherwise known as the Death Star). Had a [QQ] buddy did it for giggles a couple years ago, when the Phoenix mechs first released. Thing self-destructed, but the effect of those weapons downrange was rather vicious. Thing is, do you WANT to die from outgoing fire, or would you rather take your chances with incoming fire? Armor can't protect you from yourself. Manage your heat. When checking out the build in mechlab, you want to shoot for a heat efficiency number of at least 1.2. Some experienced players will go lower, especially if they're playing multi-role. For the NEW player, though, stick to 1.2 or higher. If the build you want has a higher heat efficiency number, then either add heat sinks or swap to some cooler-firing weapons. Also, USE SMURFY! Hans Davion does, and look where it got HIM!
-LOCATION! Where you are has a lot to do with your heat. The same build will run a lot cooler in Frozen City than it will in Caustic Valley. Why? The ambient air temperature is already higher in the latter, even though the tolerance for heat inside your mech hasn't changed. Hotter air means a slower rate of heat transfer, all else being the same. Don't even ask me about the physics behind HPG Manifold, with all that outer-space-is-a-vacuum stuff. Be aware of the temperature of your map (it's listed in the pre-drop lobby screen), and manage your activity accordingly. Colder maps allow you to fire more often. Hotter maps, not so much.
You can figure all this out in the Testing Grounds, by the way.
13.) LEARN YOUR MECH'S HANDLING, YO! Look, great race car drivers don't just hop in a new, different car, and go hauling tail around the track, setting records and dropping panties. They spend a TON of time practicing in that car, CAREFULLY, learning everything there is to know about it, having their crew tweak this and that to get it JUST RIGHT. A tiny bit more spark advance here, a little less spring rate there, over and over and over until the car is as ideally suited to the driver as possible. One size does NOT fit all. So, be glad you don't have to do all the work tweaking the actuators' timing in a 100-ton death machine. You just have to learn what it CAN and CANNOT do.
AGAIN, and I can't overstate this, GO TO TESTING GROUNDS with your cool mech. Even if it's a Trial mech. Learn those, too. You may never own the thing, but understanding how it handles, how quickly it can go from stop to full speed, how wide an arc it cuts in a turn, how quickly it can twist torso to one side or the other, makes you a better mechwarrior. It's not ALL about lining up accurate shots and pulling the pew switch. Running face-first into a hill that you CANNOT climb, while under fire, having that collision drag you to a dead stop, again WHILE UNDER FIRE, and dying for it? Priceless. Also, not profitable, and not likely a further contribution to your team's effort. Figure it out. Go walk in circles. Run in circles. Jump around (get up, get up, and get down). go from full-forward to full-reverse, and back again. See how to walk (not JJ) your way up the steep hills in Alpine Peaks, so you learn how to hillhump in your chosen machine of doom.
And back to the first reply...
14.) CONFIGURE YOUR CONTROLS! You need this to all be intuitive for you. Not for ME, not for anyone else, but for YOU. Whatever that means, do it. If you want the spacebar to fire an alpha strike, then go customize that key binding and make it happen. Don't ever use MASC? Then don't feel bad for leaving MASC unbound. You don't NEED it, per se.
As stated above, I use what might not be a very common configuration. On the right hand, I have a Logitech wireless trackball (they don't MAKE the wired ones any more, dammit!) with lots of buttons. LMB is group 1, RMB is 2, scroll is zoom, the third mouse button (pressing down the scroll wheel) is alpha strike. And that controls my torso/arms facing. At the left hand, I have a Nostromo N52 (older one, by Belkin I think?) (If you watched Ender's Game, you saw a bunch of these in the big final battle sequence). The D-pad is mapped to the WASD movement control. Buttons there for groups 3-5. I don't use 6, except if I'm carrying TAG, and so I set that up to toggle. Have the R key in there, as well as SPACE and the MASC button and buttons for my consumables and for ECM mode toggle and view modes. It's all in there. I don't touch the keyboard during a match. I just recently remapped the JJ button, and it's gotten me MUCH better results (now easier to use while controlling the direction of my legs and torso, making for some cool aerial stuff in an ACH).
Point is, do what works for you, controls-wise. And as advised above, try to keep clicks on your aiming hand to a minimum. If you're using a proper mouse, which I HIGHLY recommend that FPS players do not for just this reason, then every click on Mouse0 or Mouse1 has the potential to throw your aim off just a little. It can be the difference between live and die, between win and lose. I dodge this with the trackball, and with sucking at aiming anyhow. Again, individual results may vary. Do what works.
15.) KNOW THE MECHS! Where are the weapon hardpoints on a given mech? What's the difference between a LCT-3M and -3S? Which weapons are likely to be WHERE in that mech? What's the max armor for a given location on a mech? How big are the hitboxes (hint: on the JM6, they're ENORMOUS)? First, you need this for your own survival. Once the enemy has closed within range, you can sacrifice that LRM launcher you stuffed in your right arm, as long as you keep those cERMLs. Know which pieces of your mech you can live without. And then, same for your targets. Know which pieces you can take off of them that will CRIPPLE them. Got a dual AC/20 Jagermech in front of you? Screw the torsos, aim for the ARMS. Or the legs, maybe (ammo in heavier mechs is usually stored in the better-armored legs). But if you knock his arms off, you take out 40 points from his alpha strike. He's a big meat shield at that point, and you can probably leave him alone to focus on more important targets. Knocking the left arm off a Centurion, on the other hand, is pretty much a waste--they don't have any weapon hardpoints there, so they often shield with the left side. In the CN9-YLW hero mech, there aren't even missile hardpoints in the left torso, so if they went with a standard engine, you can broomstick them and they're still likely toting a pair of medium lasers. You've got to know this stuff to get better at this game.
Also, as light mechs usually aren't all the well armored even at MAX, aiming for the legs is often an effective way to ruin their days. I think the max leg armor for a 35-ton mech is like 32, maybe? They'll probably carry that, too. But kill one of those legs, and that mech is limited to 40 kph (slower than most stock assault mechs). Take both out, and it's dead. If the light that's harassing you is just too fast to keep a solid bead on it, then sweep the leg (YES, SINSEI!) with laser fire and try not to let it stay behind you too long.
Personally I do think this thread should be pinned, since the detail of it is well written out and shows you have done your homework, as well as all the other useful tips other pilots are adding to it. It might also help some pilots (I am not naming any names) to actually go and read this and find out how they can best help their team, even when playing in Pug-Mode. After the battering I got all of last night and most of this morning from idiots who fielded 'Mechs they did not know how to use, much less what each class of 'Mech is designed for (and getting ticked off royally in the process), a thread like this should not fade into obscurity.
Keep those tips and advice coming, people, they will surely make for a more enjoyable gaming experience in the long run!
It also taught me a few things, so thanks as well. :-)
As a newbie (returning player but still have a whole lot to learn) This thread is very helpful, thanks to OP and others posting.
As far as learning from failures go, I tend to mess up a lot, so here's a few newb mistakes I've made recently that have been a learning experience...
When spawning in (particularly in larger mechs), have a quick look down/ around before moving off..it seems the game does like to spawn you right on top of a light mech that you can't always see, I have caused leg damage to a light by walking right over it (at least the light pilot certainly moaned about it in chat, which is fair enough in my opinion).
Be wary of "meta" builds. While it is very helpful to see the builds linked by more experienced players, the emphasis is on the "experienced". A fair few builds are very specifically tailored to a particular playstyle that requires considerably more skill/ experience (not to mention c-bills) than most new players (and I'm definitely one of them) are going to have to pull off successfully. Sometimes a more balanced (read "forgiving") build may allow you to be more useful while gaining the xp/ c-bills/ skill required to pilot a highly specialised mech. Granted, the school of hard knocks is fine, as long as you don't become discouraged by getting fragged repeatedly without doing anything particularly helpful.
Personally, I don't pilot assaults yet (other than a couple of games early on just to see), as I feel I am no-where near good enough at the basics as yet to be taking up that much tonnage on my team. I'd recommend mediums to any new player as a good way of learning the game without being too high a liability to your team. (of course this is just a personal opinion).
Another reason we try to steer new players away from meta builds, and meta mechs early on, is the fact that they don't really teach you much about piloting. Those builds are very forgiving of mistakes, and will make up for your lack of skill, without you noticing it. So you don't grow as a pilot as quickly as you would, if you were in a good starter mech, that was not an absolute monster.
As a newbie (returning player but still have a whole lot to learn) This thread is very helpful, thanks to OP and others posting.
Personally, I don't pilot assaults yet (other than a couple of games early on just to see), as I feel I am no-where near good enough at the basics as yet to be taking up that much tonnage on my team. I'd recommend mediums to any new player as a good way of learning the game without being too high a liability to your team. (of course this is just a personal opinion).
you are welcome.
I personally am hopeless in assaults, and there seem to be quite a few players who just do not have the aptitude for ether Light Mechs or Assault Mechs, most players can get the hang of Mediums or Heavies but most lights and assaults require very different play styles and mindsets to do well in.
if you dislike a specific Mech that is no problem (unless you bankrupted yourself buying it) ask and we may be able to suggest a build better suited to you or if we cannot figure out a way to make it work you can always get back some of the cbills by selling the Mech.
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