Now that we’ve gone over the basics of how to play and how to purchase your own Mech, we’re going to go into the specific weapons, what they do, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. The first in this series is going to be the Energy Weapons category.
Before we get started, I want to point out that a lot of information was gathered from two threads on the MechWarrior Online forum for this video. Specifically I used Ohmwrecker’s weapons spreadsheet and used some information from a forum post by Teirdome that specifically covered lasers and how to use them. Both of these forum posts can be found in the video description below.
The main benefit to Energy weapons over Ballistic or Missile weaponry is that they do not use ammo. You will never find yourself running dry on the battlefield and unable to fire. The downside to most energy weapons is that they come at increased heat cost.
The first energy weapons we’re going to cover are the Lasers. These are a stable of the Mechwarrior universe and come in two varieties: Standard and Pulse. Both types come in three categories: Large, Medium, and Small with standard lasers having an Extended Range version of the Large Laser.
The benefit of lasers is that due to being made of light, they will hit your target instantaneously unlike ballistics which have a travel time. This makes Lasers very useful for hitting mobile targets or targets at long range. Lasers do not do their damage all at once; rather they do their damage over a one second burn time. This damage is calculated over 10 “ticks” of damage during that second. This means that if your laser is off target for just half a second you will be losing 5 “ticks” or half your damage. This also means that even if you hit your target, you may accidentally spread your damage across multiple mech locations rather than hitting just one. Consider this carefully when trying to make a laser based build.
Standard Lasers:
Standard lasers have four size categories, each with its own damage and range. You can see the effective range of your lasers in the weapons load out part of your HUD on the lower right. The numbers you see here are the range at which your lasers will do their maximum damage. Lasers can extend beyond this range, up to double the range listed, however, the further out your target is from the weapon’s range the less damage it will do. Take for example the ER Large Laser which has a range of 675 meters. If you try to hit a target at around a kilometer out (roughly 50% beyond effective range) that ER Laser will only do half its damage. This means that you can still do damage with the ER Large Laser up to around 1300 meters even though it’s reduced.
The only differences between the ER Large Laser and the Large Laser are the range and heat values. ER Large Lasers come at extended range at the cost of building up additional heat; both weapons will do the same amount of damage. Each size reduction will then do less damage, have less range, but also generate less heat. The Small Laser has the unique property of having a shorter burn time, around .75 seconds rather than a full second; they also cycle faster than the other lasers. This means that Small Lasers will do their full damage in a shorter time span, and you can use them quickly, making them ideal for hitting fast moving targets at close range.
Pulse Lasers:
Unlike their standard brethren, Pulse Lasers have a shorter burn time as well as doing more damage overall. This gives pulse lasers the advantage of more damage in a shorter time frame, making it easier to target specific locations of an enemy mech over a regular laser. Pulse Lasers are an excellent middle ground for people who want something with the power of a Ballistic weapon with the aiming benefit of a laser. The added damage and accuracy of a Pulse Laser comes at a cost. They have reduced range, build up more heat, and take up more tonnage on a Battlemech than a Standard Laser of the same size category. Just like standard Lasers, the small pulse laser has a shorter burn time and faster recycle rate.
Overall pros and cons of lasers:
- Lasers have an overall lower effective/maximum range to ballistic weapons, but are lighter and take up far fewer critical slots in a battlemech
- Lasers do not have a travel time, but generate more heat than ballistics
- Ballistics are harder to aim, but do their damage at impact where lasers might graze different parts of a Mech, spreading damage rather than focusing it.
- Pulse lasers are a great middle point between ballistic and laser, doing high damage on a more focused location, while still having burn time to compensate for movement
- Ballistic weaponry cause kinetic damage, which rocks a mech, making it hard for pilots to aim
PPC:
Since we’re talking about Kinetic damage, let’s talk about the Laser’s big brother: The PPC or Particle Projection Cannon. PPCs are the big daddy of energy weapons. They provide a massive punch with the range to match. The downside to PPCs is very high heat generation. PPCs are the energy equivalent to Gauss Rifles, perfect for someone who wants the punch, but doesn’t want to deal with ammo. PPCs fire charged particles, meaning they are not actually lasers. They have weight and mass and thus have a travel time. The good news is this means that when a PPC hits a mech it will rock the chassis much like a ballistic weapon would.
Much like Large Lasers, the PPC comes in two flavors: The regular PPC and the ER (or Extended Range) PPC. The difference between them is just the same, the ER PPC comes with a longer range at the cost of more heat generation.
While the upside to PPCs is that they are always available and will never run out of ammo, they are not as efficient or effective as their ballistic brethren. Compared to Gauss Rifles PPCs have reduced range, generate more heat, and do reduce damage. While this is a lot of negatives against PPCs, Gauss Rifles have to carry ammo, which means that a critical hit where an opponent is carrying its Gauss ammunition can spell disaster for that Mech.
Flamers:
Before we end this module on energy weapons, we have two more weapons to go over. Both are niche weapons and used for very specific means. The first is the Flamer. This weapon is basically a bigger, battlemech sized version of the good old fashioned Flame Thrower. Flamers do minimal damage and have a very short range; they are intended to generate a large amount of heat in an enemy battlemech. In Tabletop rules for Battletech, mechs running on high heat would suffer penalties such as reduced speed, accuracy loss, ammo explosions, and getting shut down. MWO does not have all of these features in the game yet, but the important one, ammo explosions and shut downs are in play. This means that making a mech generate a lot of heat can cause it to be a sitting duck, or even blow up its own ammo which could be fatal.
Now, the down side. Flamers currently do not work as you would expect. Having more than one flamer does not seem to generate heat in an opposing battlemech faster and flamers tend to generate more heat for the user rather than the target. This coupled with players who tend to use very heat efficient mechs means this weapon is not advised for current mech builds. You would be better served using a weapon that does damage instead.
TAG:
Lastly, but far from least, we have TAG. TAG stands for Target Acquisition Gear. TAG is a laser designation device used to increase the accuracy of friendly mech missiles. You have to keep firing the TAG on an opposing mech for the missiles to get the effect, however if you do, the missiles will track that mech much better and will have a tighter spread, hitting the same location more often rather than spreading the damage out over the entire mech.
TAGs are a utility weapon. You won’t get kills for using and you may not get a lot of recognition, however any Missile Boat on your team that sees your TAG icon will be thankful and your efforts may end up leading your team to victory. Just like any other energy weapon, TAG requires no ammo and is essentially “free” to use. They generate no heat, cost minimal tonnage and critical slot spaces. They do, however, take one energy hard point that you could put a laser or PPC into.
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