67 replies to this topic

[IIIuminaughty]

Commando's for chumps you wanna live dangerous, go as an infantry unit or at least a Battle Armor! Whooho!

But I guess Commandos are the closet thing we have to living Dangerous life style =(

[Lt muffins]

The stock is very underpowered but there is a personal favorite varient that holds a spot close to my heart the "Blazing Inferno" varient.

If my memory serves me correct this one has 4 medium lasers and 6 small laser, this is achieved by removing the SRM's and replacing them with the lasers

(source: Cresent hawk's Inception. link to mech specs here)

Edited by Lt muffins, 01 June 2012 - 08:05 PM.

[Arikiel]

Given it's weight it is potentially the fastest Mech in the game thus-far. With XL Engines you can bump up it's speed to 8/12 and still gain a ton of armor over it's base 2D. You could even go so far as to double it's speed to 12/18 and still have 7 tons left for weapons/armor. With that kind of speed, a 25 ton silhouette, and a couple of Medium Lasers you'll be set.

[Atham MacKinaw]

Heck, you don't even need an XL engine to make it that fast, and still powerful for it's size. Remove all weapons and you've got 8 tons to play with. A standard engine beefy enough to get it to 8/12 speed only costs you an extra 3 tons from that, leaving you 5 tons to play with, weapon-wise. A Cicada, same speed and armor has only 2.5 tons to play with. Raven? 6 tons if we equal out armor, but you'll probably be paying through the nose for that extra ton. Jenner? 5.5 tons, but you need to drop all JJs to do it. And, as stated by others here, the Commando's likely to have a smaller profile for people to shoot at than any of them.

And then there's the 9/14(?) speed option. Commando would still have 2.5 tons to play with, same as a stock Cicada. Any of the others would have to drop armor just to mount a weapon. Except for the Cicada. It can't go that fast.

All that available on probably your first day in the mech lab, whether you have c-bills from a founder's package or a couple missions under your belt, unless low rated, standard engines are more expensive than I expect.

Arikiel, on 01 June 2012 - 08:27 PM, said:

Given it's weight it is potentially the fastest Mech in the game thus-far. With XL Engines you can bump up it's speed to 8/12 and still gain a ton of armor over it's base 2D. You could even go so far as to double it's speed to 12/18 and still have 7 tons left for weapons/armor. With that kind of speed, a 25 ton silhouette, and a couple of Medium Lasers you'll be set.

And as Arikiel mentioned, once you get XL engines, Commando has potential as a strafing streak of a mech. A ground level aerospace fighter.

Edited by Atham MacKinaw, 01 June 2012 - 09:03 PM.

[Agent KI7KO]

Commando has a lot of missile hardpoints compared to the other two lights.

Personally I will be driving a Raven as my light since I have always liked Information Warfare.

[LordDeathStrike]

proktor, on 01 June 2012 - 01:47 PM, said:

so far the nicest mech they redisgned is in my humble opinion the commando, and prefering light mechs
i think i will pilot one, but lately i am having second doubts.
why pilot this mech when the jenner for instance is far its superior, it is better armed and it is faster.
do not get me wrong, running at almost 100 km/h is pretty fast but better armed opponents can hunt
him down easily, hell even a dragon with a little tuning can catch up with him.
than there is its armament, srm's and a single medium laser can do a good amount of damage, but you have to get close to inflict damage and 4 tons of armour is not going to protect me from a AC 20 shot.
sure i can tinker with his weapons in the mech lab, but looking at the other variants of the commando only
a few other variants carry long range weapons,(large laser,AC2) and i am
pretty sure you can not put a PPC on this mech without sacrifing a good amount of your precious armour, or even worse, your speed.
downgrading it's engine will be a death sentence for this mech.


so in short, what roll is suited for this mech? a scout? the raven is better suited for that.
fast striker? the jenner is better armed and is more mobile.

I have read a lot of post and topics and i hardly have read any players saying they will pilot the commando.
so if you are, let me know how you plan on using this mech and what type of loadout you will be using.
it would be interesting to read what kind of magic you players have in store for the commando
i think its a shame if this mech will see little use in the game.

commandos arent meant to take ac 20 hits, neither is the jenner. what the commando is meant to do is harrass and hunt scouts, speed it up some, swap the weapons around a bit, its a scout killer and harrassment mech. and it looks damn cool doing it.

[Brohm]

Christopher Dayson, on 01 June 2012 - 01:48 PM, said:

The only reason to use a Commando:

There's no Locust yet

Man - I remember in the original PC Mechwarrior game the Locust was a beast! I don't know how many Battlemasters (legs) were destroyed by that speedy machine gun wielding menace! (Hint - it was kind of a lot).

[Atham MacKinaw]

Brohm, on 01 June 2012 - 10:23 PM, said:

Man - I remember in the original PC Mechwarrior game the Locust was a beast! I don't know how many Battlemasters (legs) were destroyed by that speedy machine gun wielding menace! (Hint - it was kind of a lot).

-laughs- I remember how if you got up close, basically hugging whichever leg you wanted to remove, the Battlemaster couldn't even pan down far enough to shoot at you. Maybe just see a bit of the Locust's torso in the bottom corner of the screen.

[Gladewolf]

Unmodified, the Commando has 1 more ton of weaponry than the Jenner. Of the 3 light mechs, it is the only one built to have fully articulated arms, meaning that it "should" have the best ability to use it's arm weapons outside of it's foward arc. Will i be a good enough pilot to make use of that? <shrug> I look foreward to the challenge. In terms of survivability....NONE of them can take many hits.

[Lanc3rz3r0]

Christopher Dayson, on 01 June 2012 - 01:48 PM, said:

The only reason to use a Commando:

There's no Locust yet

locust is one of the Unseen, isnt it? I thought i read that on Sarna

[Killashnikov]

Well, a couple of heavies could play soccer with it's head...

[Stormeris]

I like it's monocle ;D

[Nik Van Rhijn]

The closest I will get to a light is a Cicada. No place in poll for "other".

[chainedbeast]

I agree with it having arms. When you have the possibility of doing melee damage that was a plus. Modifications to this mech are key for the pilot. That is the beauty of the game. In the table top game I used these to scout and hunt down scouts. The 5 extra tons helps a little.

[Robovski]

Proper arms were always a worthwhile consideration IMO, but that 25 tons is a sweet spot for design purposes, you get more efficient use from engines/armor at this weight that you do at 20 or 30 tons and so pound for pound you get more value from say a Commando than a Locust.

But that's just old tabletop theory. How your Commando plays depends on how you geared it out. Want to hunt scouts? It will need a concentrated weapon for crits like the Large Laser - which fits beautifully in a Commando while still allowing all the speed and armor you'd need for the role. Cut back on speed or armor and you can have a PPC which really punches holes in lights and hurts heavier mechs (but you won't want to hang around but you don't have to at 8/12).
Just want a really fast scout? Up that engine more and carry some medium lasers or an LRM-5 package for targets of opportunity and congratulate yourself on having greased lightning in mech form at 9/14.
What about a positional harasser? Easy, 8/12 and 8 jump jets and 2 medium lasers and you will be laughing - literally laughing as you fly across the battlefield to from behind enemy targets.
Or maybe you prefer to hang back and be pseudo arty that can really scoot. 8/12 and 2 lrm-5 racks let your other scout pals be in front while you supply the rain while being very hard to catch. Slow her down to 6/9 and the mediums will still be pressed to catch you but you can carry so much more...

[Dragon Lady]

proktor, on 01 June 2012 - 01:47 PM, said:

so far the nicest mech they redisgned is in my humble opinion the commando, and prefering light mechs
i think i will pilot one, but lately i am having second doubts.
why pilot this mech when the jenner for instance is far its superior, it is better armed and it is faster.
do not get me wrong, running at almost 100 km/h is pretty fast but better armed opponents can hunt
him down easily, hell even a dragon with a little tuning can catch up with him.
than there is its armament, srm's and a single medium laser can do a good amount of damage, but you have to get close to inflict damage and 4 tons of armour is not going to protect me from a AC 20 shot.
sure i can tinker with his weapons in the mech lab, but looking at the other variants of the commando only
a few other variants carry long range weapons,(large laser,AC2) and i am
pretty sure you can not put a PPC on this mech without sacrifing a good amount of your precious armour, or even worse, your speed.
downgrading it's engine will be a death sentence for this mech.


so in short, what roll is suited for this mech? a scout? the raven is better suited for that.
fast striker? the jenner is better armed and is more mobile.

I have read a lot of post and topics and i hardly have read any players saying they will pilot the commando.
so if you are, let me know how you plan on using this mech and what type of loadout you will be using.
it would be interesting to read what kind of magic you players have in store for the commando
i think its a shame if this mech will see little use in the game.

Since I'll probably playing a Jenner pilot in MWO, allow me to correct a few of your misconceptions:

1) The Commando is better armed than a Jenner. I know it may not seem like it at first glance. After all, the Jenner can do a maximum of 28 points of damage, while the Commando can do a maximum of 25, but the Jenner has a fatal flaw that doesn't allow it to make full use of its weapons load.

2) The Commando has an optimized cooling system. It can fire all its weapons without building up heat, while the Jenner can only fire three of its weapons. Which means that the Jenner is really designed to only do a maximum of 18 damage, but it can briefly do more.

This is because the two 'Mechs are designed to fulfil two different roles. The Commando is designed as a light brawler, a 'Mech that can quickly move into position, and dish out massive damage over multiple turns. This makes it ideal for hunting scout 'Mechs, as well as providing reinforcements for heavier 'Mechs.

The Jenner is designed as an ambusher, and its design works best in the table-top game. It's a 'Mech that you'd want to move last in the movement phase of the game, so that you can jump the 'Mech into rear arc of a heavy or assault 'Mech, and unleash a devastating alpha strike into the rear armor of its target, and then jump away and cool off for several turns while you wait for all the heat you'd built up to dissipate. I have yet to play a Mechwarrior game that genuinely allowed a 'Mech with jump jets perform this kind of maneuver, which is why I intend to modify my Jenner by ripping out its SRM launcher, and adding two heat sinks and a little more armor.

[Lanc3rz3r0]

about the locust: this redesign makes it look wicked!
http://shortpainter....2F1444911&qo=27

[TWolfWD]

One of my favorite variants of the commando for BT involves adding Endo Steel internals, and using the extra ton for armor, which brings it just shy of max. I then replace the ammo for the SRM 4 with inferno rounds. While it reduces the damage potential, this can be quite devastating against mechs with less than stellar heat management.

[Forscythe]

Surprise everyone your starting mech will be the commando unless you buy the founders pack! Just a little speculation.

[Marlekh]

i got a commando and im quite happy with it. the arms are rally useful for hunting down other scouts like the raven. you are more flexible in the infight. and wit one med laser and three ssrm i got enogh firepower for hit and run. and it looks funny how it runs... like a puppet in the string^^