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Movement/ Situational Awareness:
- When a match starts, pay attention to your team’s movement. You will want to stick with at least two other mechs when possible. The worst thing that can happen is being caught alone.
- Do not run into enemy territory alone. If you are the only target for the enemy, their combined fire on you will be devastating. A possible exception is a fast moving light. Even if you are a 120kph+ scout, weave around cover and try to stay out of enemy fire. If you are a Medium Mech or heavier, stay with your team.
- If you see movement, use your team chat and call out locations (direction or coordinates) when it is possible. Let your team know where the enemy is spotted. It doesn’t have to be much, maybe just “3 mech south” or “Dragon at E5”. Thermal vision can help spot enemy movement at long range before they can be targeted. Every little bit helps.
- If you see your team mates firing on a mech, fire on that mech as well. Focus fire is very important. Do not worry about “stealing a kill”. To be as effective of a team as you can be, you will need to drop enemy mechs as fast as possible.
- Pay attention to your team. If you advance with a couple of mechs, be mindful where they go. Nothing is worse than loosing one mech, and having the other retreat leaving you alone and in the enemy’s line of site. Basically, try and stay with your team. Being alone is dangerous.
- Use cover. Hill sides, buildings, etc.. If an enemy spots you and launches LRMs, cover can provide not only protection from missiles, but also break line of site and cause the enemy LRMs to loose tracking.
Attacking Targets:
- Know your weapon’s effective ranges. If a Medium Laser is only good to 540 meters max, do not fire beyond that. All it does is generate heat and cause no damage. Your fire group display shows the ranges of your weapons. If the weapon is “Black”, it is ineffective. If it is “Yellow”, it will do damage, but is out of optimal range. If weapon is “Green”, it is in optimal range and can do optimal damage.
- If you have long range capability such as a Gauss, Large Laser, PPC, LRMs, etc…, try to make long range attacks. Many mechs run Medium Lasers (270m optimal, 540m max range). If you can effectively hit at great ranges, use that range to help keep your damage to a minimum.
- Delegate threats. If a mech has lost weapons, but still has descent armor, consider leaving him alone for another target (especially if he is running away). If you run after him he may separate you from your group and leave you exposed to enemy fire. Also, if he can do little damage to anyone, he is a low priority threat. Help your team take out more dangerous mechs and keep up more focused fire on real threats. Again, use your judgment.
- Look for weaknesses. If you think an enemy mech is running with an XL engine, see if you can hit his side torsos effectively. Less armor at that location means he will go down quicker than trying to core him. If he has a “big gun” like an AC20, Large Laser, SRMs, etc.. in an arm, try and destroy that arm if possible. Limiting an enemy Mechs fire power can be important. Again, use your best judgment in determining if it is better to disarm first or go for the kill.
Taking Damage:
- If you find yourself taking a lot of damage, try and find cover. If someone is chasing you, try and put something between you and him. While doing so, fall back to your team mates. Either the enemy will disengage and run back, or he will be caught in the open and focus fired on by your team (hopefully). If you can, send a message to your team like “help E5”. Although you are playing with PUGs with no guarantees, often if someone can help, they will.
- If you suffer major damage to a chassis location (such as RH torso), try and shield it from enemy fire. After you return fire, rotate your damaged torso away from the enemy. Try and stay alive as long as possible to put down as much damage as possible.
- Lastly, if you are almost dead (no armor, orange or red torso internals), try and back up behind your friendly Mechs. You might draw a lone enemy into your lines and make him vulnerable. This might also take the heat off of you.
- Sometimes you just can’t win. If you are badly damaged like stated above, and you are unarmed, you can do one of two things…
- Try and sneak by the enemy and start a cap, or try and run around as a distraction. Either of those are most likely a death sentence, but may help your team anyway.
- Find a place to hide and power down. If you are loosing 1 to 7, you are not going to change the tide of the match. Try and stay alive to ease repair costs. Again, use your best judgment, don’t hide and power down when your team needs you.
- Try and sneak by the enemy and start a cap, or try and run around as a distraction. Either of those are most likely a death sentence, but may help your team anyway.
I know it was long, but I tried to break things up to help. Some last few things…
- Watch your heat. Break your weapons up into fire groups to maintain sustained fire. Try not to over heat, this makes you vulnerable and can be a death sentence for a light mech.
- Do research. This link will take you to weapons tables, chassis info, etc.. that will help you greatly in the game http://mwomercs.com/...s-excel-inside/
- If you wish, try a 3rd party team speak server like TS3. Verbal communication is the best. The forums have many links to TS3 servers. At the least, typing team messages is better than nothing. TS3 Link http://mwomercs.com/...e-chat-servers/
- Find a group or clan. This will give you the best experience. If you don’t want to do that and just want to PUG, I find the best times are before 6:00PM Eastern Time. Once 8:00PM hits, there will be A LOT of Premades running around.
Thank You, and I hope this helps out a bit. It seems to work for me.
