31 replies to this topic

[Thejuggla]

Hi I've noticed some things about weapons/equiptment AFTER I've bought them such as using an XL will cause any torso being destroyed as well destroy my engine, which would of drsaitcally effected my decision on purchusing such an expensive item. As well as the guass blowing up for 20 points of damage when destroyed if uncased, which I find somehow my torso with my guass rifle on my atlas ALWAYS seems to get destroyed first. At first I wasn't aware of how crippled I was not running a case since almost every game my guass rifle seemed always first to go, and when it did so did my mech because of the XL. As well other things like minuim range on guass and PPCs.

Is there any other little "secrets" I am missing?

I find it hard to build mechs perfectly, especially now that I wanna stay away from the XLs, For you min/maxers how do you decide to get FF armor, Endo Steel or an XL engine while building your mechs?

Also is there a mech builder calcualtor so I can decided on builds before purchasing a mech?

[Nexus Omega]

Welcome To Mech Warrior young padwan.

http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/mechlab

Endo Steel gives you 5% more tonnage to play around with (5 tons for an Atlas, 2.5 for a 50 ton mech)

FF decreases Armour weight by 10% not worth it in most cases, as Endo will always net you more.

The XL engines are a risk vs reward balance, some Mechs work better with them then others,

I only Run XL's on my light mech's (people just shoot your legs mostly) and my stalker 5s, (yay more guns).
I prefer standards in most everything else especially Atlas.

[Redshift2k5]

Unfortunately there is not much in the way of documentation for MWO. First, read over the official information here:

http://mwomercs.com/...raining-grounds

http://mwomercs.com/...gameplay-guides

Otherwise, thwy expect players to know the basics of Battletech rules (such as XL engines destroiyig the mech if you lose a side torso, gauss rifles exploding, etc)

when in doubt, check the forum

[muskrat]

Salute Juggla,

Mech building lab BEFORE you spend your hard earned Cbills

(mech lab in upper left)


http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/


Engine and Wpns depends on your play style: Example: if your gonna be in the thick of it, (brawler) NO XL, if you intend to snipe and want to move around, smaller mechs use XL

(Bow)
Muskrat

Edited by muskrat, 10 February 2013 - 02:30 PM.

[FireDog]

Check out the MWO wiki CASE page:

http://mwowiki.org/w...quipment_(CASE)

Luck!

[Thejuggla]

Thanks for the links, I wouldn't say I wasted that engine though, I can throw that on my catapult and it would be epic with the extra weight saved use jump jets and have a higher top speed of 74.

[Hyzoran]

XLs work well on catapults as the side torsos are hard to hit on them, dont extrude versy much, and people dont seem to have a priority of targeting them. Unlike an Atlas, where players will most certainly target your right or left torsos depending on your loadout.

[XphR]

If you hold your breath you can turn a little faster regardless of speed.

[Ceesa]

Something I didn't know was that only the regular PPCs have the 90m minimum range. ERPPCs do damage down to 0 m, because apparently the "ER" part works in both directions.

Another little thing is that not all missile hardpoints are created equal. If you take an LRM 15 off of a Cat C1 and replace it with an LRM 20, when firing the 20 you'll see that not all 20 missiles leave the launcher together. It instead looks like there are two firings. That's because the C1 only has 15 missile tubes for each hardpoint, so it can only launch 15 missiles at a time. So it launches 15, then 5 for the LRM 20. All mechs have this issue. One of my favorites is the Stalker that comes with NARC. That's a missile hardpoint with only one tube, so if you put a LRM 20 on there it'll fire 20 missiles, one at a time.

[SPencil]

Hyzoran, on 10 February 2013 - 03:15 PM, said:

people dont seem to have a priority of targeting [catapults].

Catapults are the priority target in the absence of an Atlas or a Stalker.

I think it's also safe to assume that a splatapult is just as important a target as an Atlas.

Then again what is and is not a priority target changes given different situations :l

[WinnieTheWhor]

mwo.smurfy-net.de

Use this website to play with builds, learn more about how weapons work.

Subtle things people don't know: Streak SRMs and LRMs can only target left/right/center torso.

Lasers deal damage over time based on their target, but can be spread all across areas if you're not VERY accurate or your target isn't moving. PPCs ALWAYS deal their damage to one area.

[Seth]

I'm sure you probably realize this by now, but LRMs have a minimum range of 180m. All energy and ballistic weapons have a optimum range and a max range. Up to their optimum range they do full damage. Between their optimum and max range, their damage drops from full damage to 0 in a flat line. The max range of energy weapons is 2X their optimum range and the max range of ballistic weapons is 3X their optimum range. You can see a table of weapons stats on the wiki and more info on each weapon's page; mwowiki.org/wiki/Weapons.

[Soda Popinsky]

Unless you are a very very good shot or very close, don't bother with cockpit shots. The hit box is much smaller than most people realize.

Take a look.

[Splinters]

Here are a few other hints besides the ones already covered:

Another little hint is to use the LRM-15 instead of the LRM-20 launcher. It works better for the size and weight, which in turn gives you more ammo or other critical items. The LRM-5 has the best heat/weight ratio of any launcher, but due to limited hardpoints, LRM-15's are usually the best bet in most mechs.

Another little known and used fact is that the LB-10X autocannon can get more crits since it is a shotgun of "10 pellets" which has a crit bonus (don't know how it's actually calculated in-game), but if you hit an open torso with the LB-10X, you will be taking a lot of components out and really crippling an enemy mech quickly.

If you are in a light or medium mech, you will almost always want to get the Endo-Steel Upgrade for more weight savings (5% of your mech weight). The only reason not to is if you have a lot of Double Heat Sinks to also bring in. A few heavy and assaults use Endo, but usually crits are more important in those mechs than tonnage savings.

Ferro Fiborus (FF) armor is usually only worth it on light mechs in combo with Endo, but never by itself. The weight savings are almost always greater in Endo than FF. the 1.12 increase in points of armor per ton (32 w/ regular vs 35.84 w/ FF) may make sense in some assaults, but I have not really seen an effective use of it to-date.

Engine Heat Sink Storage: This is very well known and documented but people seem to forget this often is that every engine can hold one Heat Sink (Single or Double) per 25 engine size. The other component to this is that every mech must fit a minimum of 10 Heat Sinks (Single or Double). So if you choose an engine pick them in multiple of 25 (200,225,250,275,300,350, etc.). If you choose a 225 engine for example, you will have 9 heat sinks (225/25=9) in the engine and still need to add an extra ton for the 10th HS to comply with the 10 Heat Sink min rule. Some people just fit the engine in after building the weapons and forget the HS requirement. If you go over 250 engine size, you can also put additional heat sinks in the engine for no additional crit usage.

For XL's, make sure you compare the weight when choosing an engine. a 250XL and 255XL weigh the same, so spend the extra 100k and get the 255XL.

Heat Sinks: Heat sinks increase 2 things: Heat dissipation capacity (duh), but also max heat capacity of a mech (how much heat you can build up before shut-down). A good discussion about this was done earlier on this thread.

Hope that helps!

-S

Edited by Splinters, 11 February 2013 - 09:32 AM.

[Soda Popinsky]

Couple of other "secrets" or at least not mentioned in the official tutorial videos about the cockpit (I think).

The Centurion and Catapult have missile bay doors than can be toggled open, to speed up missile deployment ("/" key).
The cockpit lights can also be dimmed with the "." key.

Additionally, the heat sink and ammo location displays in the cockpit work, and let you know how many heat sinks you have (can be damaged), and the ammo location usage (ammo gets used in head, then CT first I believe). That can be useful when thinking about ammo explosions.

Edited by Soda Popinsky, 11 February 2013 - 09:37 AM.

[Seth]

Speaking of engines; heatsinks. Heatsinks come in two different types, standard and double.

Standard heatsinks each dissipate .1 heat per second and add 1 heat to your heat threshold (default of 30). Nothing complicated there.

Double heatsinks are a different story. There are two different types of these; those that are included with the engine and those that are added separately. The double heatsinks that are included with engines work at twice the efficiency of standard heatsinks. They dissipate .2 heat per second and increase the heat threshold by 2. You can see a table that lists how many heatsinks are included with each engine here, mwowiki.org/wiki/Engine#Specifications. Heatsinks that you buy and install separately work at 1.4 times the efficiency of standard heatsinks. They dissipate .14 heat and increase the threshold by 1.4. These include heatsinks that are added to engine slots. For more on heatsinks: mwowiki.org/wiki/Heat_Sinks.

Edited by Seth, 11 February 2013 - 10:19 AM.

[Natasha Kerensky]

Redshift2k5, on 10 February 2013 - 02:29 PM, said:

Unfortunately there is not much in the way of documentation for MWO. First, read over the official information here:

http://mwomercs.com/...raining-grounds

http://mwomercs.com/...gameplay-guides

Otherwise, thwy expect players to know the basics of Battletech rules (such as XL engines destroiyig the mech if you lose a side torso, gauss rifles exploding, etc)

when in doubt, check the forum

People don't know why an Inner Sphere XL engine will explode when your side torsos get destroyed. Let me explain.

An engine can take 3 critical hits before getting destroyed. A standard engine only sits in the center torso so most of the time you can get crits on the engine and it doesn't affect you in this game. However Inner Sphere XL engine spills 3 crit slots on to the side torsos so once the side torso goes, you go.
Clan XL engines only spill 2 crit slots on to the side torsos so if Clan XL engines were in this game, you would not die if your sides go. (There are various problems when your engine get critted even with one or two crits but they are not in this game yet)

[Raso]

Right now the K2 is a trial mech. You have no idea how many people I see trying to use the PPC at point blank or firing their machine guns in vein. It's good pickings but bad new user experience. There needs to be more ingame documentation you can't be expected to go to the forums to learn about some gimmick or quirk you have no reason to believe even exists.

Edited by Raso, 11 February 2013 - 10:37 AM.

[ElLocoMarko]

Natasha Kerensky, on 11 February 2013 - 10:15 AM, said:

People don't know why an Inner Sphere XL engine will explode when your side torsos get destroyed. Let me explain.

An engine can take 3 critical hits before getting destroyed. A standard engine only sits in the center torso so most of the time you can get crits on the engine and it doesn't affect you in this game. However Inner Sphere XL engine spills 3 crit slots on to the side torsos so once the side torso goes, you go.
Clan XL engines only spill 2 crit slots on to the side torsos so if Clan XL engines were in this game, you would not die if your sides go. (There are various problems when your engine get critted even with one or two crits but they are not in this game yet)

Except that engines still don't have a health value and are thus invulnerable (passes damage on to the internal structure). When you see "Engine Destroyed" on you death screen that is because you had an XL engine and the entire side torso was destroyed which took the engine with it.

A fairly good read is here: http://mwomercs.com/...8-engine-crits/
Ignore "3 crits kills the crab". That is from tabletop. MWO works on item health and you can expect engine to have more than 3... In the most recent patch notes you will see...
Item Tuning
- Set Beagle Active Probe and Command Console health to 10
- Set ECM health to 3

So the crits give you a chance to hit the item and the actual weapon damage is what destroys it, if it has a health value. Engines are still invulnerable. Critical hits have some special handling that causes damage to get multiplied by 1X, 2X or 3X. See this guide for more detail: http://mwomercs.com/...-a-brief-guide/

[Soda Popinsky]

ElLocoMarko, on 11 February 2013 - 10:48 AM, said:

Except that engines still don't have a health value and are thus invulnerable (passes damage on to the internal structure). When you see "Engine Destroyed" on you death screen that is because you had an XL engine and the entire side torso was destroyed which took the engine with it.

A fairly good read is here: http://mwomercs.com/...8-engine-crits/
Ignore "3 crits kills the crab". That is from tabletop. MWO works on item health and you can expect engine to have more than 3... In the most recent patch notes you will see...
Item Tuning
- Set Beagle Active Probe and Command Console health to 10
- Set ECM health to 3

So the crits give you a chance to hit the item and the actual weapon damage is what destroys it, if it has a health value. Engines are still invulnerable. Critical hits have some special handling that causes damage to get multiplied by 1X, 2X or 3X. See this guide for more detail: http://mwomercs.com/...-a-brief-guide/

I recall in the Critical Hits sticky, it mentioned engines have 15 health points. Does that not apply yet?