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The focus of this build is to get good DPS (not necessarily Alpha Strikes) on par with other assault builds or close, without bringing our repairs up too high. I can't guarantee that you might go negative if you lose all torsos and such, but any mech who gets banged up that badly will usually have a painful repair bill.
If you want a quick look right away, this is the build:
Engine: 300 Standard
Internals: Standard
Heat Sinks: Double Heat Sinks
Artemis: Yes (optional - my D-DC already had it so I didn't feel like removing it)
Now, we focus on cheap, high DPS weapons so that in a stand-off, you won't be shrinking away from other assaults or heavies.
Right Torso - AC/2 (x2). Each AC/2 is 4 DPS for a total of 8 DPS. For the sake of comparisons, a single AC/20 is also 4 DPS. You only really lose out against 2x UAC/5 by 1.08 DPS (single fire) or 3.08 (double fire, no jam). Case + 3x AC/2 Ammo
Left Torso - SRM4+Artemis (x3) Each one does 2.67 DPS for a total of 8.01 DPS. You lose out against the SRM6(x3) by 3.24 DPS but you also run 20% cooler compared to the SRM6 setup.
Left Arm/Right Arm - Large Laser (x2). Standard energy weapons. Gives you a total of 4.24 DPS. AMS.
Center Torso - Guardian ECM
Left Leg - Beagle Active Prob (I like BAP, if you don't, just get something else)
Right Leg - SRM Ammo (x2)
Head - AMS Ammo
Modules - Advanced Zoom, Sensor Range, 360 Target Retention (or Capture Accelerator)
Combat & Heat Options:
DHS Total - 17 Double Heat Sinks (2.98 heat dissipated per second)
Max DPS - All weapons: 20.25 DPS (10.71 Heat per Second)
Long-range DPS (2x Large Laser + 2x AC/2) - 12.24 (8.31 Heat per Second)
Mid-range DPS (3x SRM4 + 2x AC/2) - 16.01 DPS (6.71 Heat per Second)
Heat Neutral DPS (3x SRM4) - 8.01 DPS (2.40 Heat per Second)
This is pretty simple. You can press down all your weapons and deal 20.25 DPS for a brief time or you can break down your attacks to the groupings listed above depending on range or depending on your current heat level.
You have good firing options at all ranges and heat levels. You even have the option to reduce heat while still firing (SRM4x3) and still deal decent DPS. The AC/2 is a versatile weapon that allows you to hit near or far though the heat buildup is quite high.
Note that all your weapons are cheap. The most expensive ones are the Large Lasers at 200k each. That's like 1,860 in equipment repairs if it gets destroyed. Your other weapons are even cheaper than that and you can always opt to use the free re-arm to negate the ammo costs completely. Even then, AC/2 ammo is very cheap and you're only bringing 2 tons of SRM+Artemis ammo (or you can scrap Artemis completely).
The bulk of your repairs should come from armor. Your engine exploding will be around 17k at most. Based on my calculations, you'd be hard-pressed to get past 80k repairs here even if everything gets blown off (50k armor, 17k engine, 1k internals, 10k equipment).
Here's the repair bill from a fight where:
1) a team mate alpha'd me in the back and removed all my back armor
2) Had all front torso armor removed during fighting
3) Got cored
Here's another repair bill where I think I lost an arm and a Large Laser and a lot of armor too. The only real difference is the reload cost on the SRMs which you can just disregard due to the free re-arm and it would end up at 60k.
If you're rolling in c-bills then you can probably disregard this build, but if you are hoping to minimize negative gains while still enjoying the benefits of running the AS7-D-DC with ECM, then give this build a try. Hopefully the days where you see negative income will be few or non-existent.
Hopefully this will give some of you an idea how it's possible to maintain a D-DC Atlas if you don't go ape-nuts on the upgrades. Hopefully even if you get completely trashed in a game, you still won't lose any c-bills worth crying over even if you have no premium time.
I just grabbed a screenshot of the score out of the games I played. Nothing spectacular but it works. I'm sure people who don't have 300ms to deal with can do even better. I have no problems going up against other assault or heavy mechs unless I get too greedy and shut down. I actually ran out of SRM ammo in this match.
As always, any feedback, suggestions, comments are welcome.
Other References:
MECHWARRIOR ONLINE BUDGET SAVING TIPS / GUIDE (AS OF NOV 14)
Hunchback HBK-4SP (5x) Medium Laser (2x) SRM6
Catapult CPLT-K2 Dual AC20 Quad Medium Laser
Atlas AS7-D-DC Alpha 85
Mechwarrior Meme Thread!
Edited by Elizander, 14 December 2012 - 10:44 PM.
