7 replies to this topic

[TheFlyingScotsman]

I thought I would provide a short list of areas new players often have trouble with. I hope someone finds it useful, especially with the influx of new players recently. TLDR in bold.

Never sell anything, keep every engine and piece of equipment you buy, even if you think you will never use it.

CBills are easy to get, pawning items only wastes time later on. Having equipment to play around with is very, very handy.

Situational awareness is key.

You can be killed in a very short timespan in MWO. Situational awareness is the act (yes, it is something you do rather than a mindset.) of actively reviewing the area around you, in addition to the battlegrid. Ideally, you should always try to know the following:

1: Where your teammates are, and what they are piloting.

2: Where your enemies are, and what they are piloting

3: Where you are going, how you will get there and what cover/risk is along that way. Always stay with teammates.

4: Where your enemy is most likely to go next. When a cap is complete, your foe will most likely move to the next adjacent cap your team owns. By heading for the next cap instead of the cap currently being taken, you can catch your enemy off-guard, even if you are slower than they are.

5: Where the closest, fastest and safest route of escape/cover from LRMs is. There is always a risk of falling into a situation where you will die if you stay, and you must be ready to retreat to safety before attacking back.

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Movement is about conservation of time, not just speed.

In any given match, one team will win in a unknown period of time. The longer mechs are exposed to enemies, the more damage is exchanged.

1: Lights should always be willing to cap. Because lights' speed is so much higher, their position as cappers is cemented. No medium can compare with how efficiently a light can cap (The CDA doesn't count, they're lights and everyone knows it.)

2: Assaults should always be willing to be at the forefront, but should also always have buddies. Outpacing and leaving an assault behind is a very bad idea, both for the team as a whole and for the lone assault. Assaults have far more armor than their heavy cousins, and are a much larger, easier to strike target. They also carry more firepower (typically) than lighter classes of mech. For this reason, they are usually the target of most attacks. This needs to be used to offer greater safety to smaller mechs while said smaller mechs focus down single targets and mingle into the brawl before they can be killed during the approach.

3: By moving in a straighter line, you will reach your destination more quickly than with a jagged line. Move with purpose, and use your map to plan courses. This is especially important for slower mechs. I personally don't have a problem with my HGN-HM on alpine, at only 54kmh. It isn't a problem because of how and where I move. Also, to catch faster mechs circling you, always turn away from the direction they are moving, and hit them as they pass around.

4:Jumpjets let you circumvent impassable terrain, allowing you to move in a straighter line than mechs that do not have JJs.

Patience is key in avoiding piloting errors.

Because there are no respawns, it is very important to not make piloting errors. Piloting errors are mistakes you make that result in you taking damage, or your team having a worse chance of winning. There are many ways you can make errors, and noticing/understanding what you did wrong are how anyone gets better at anything (Inside or outside MWO.) Here are some examples of common piloting errors:

1: Rushing too far ahead and being attacked without backup. Leaving teammates who are slower too far behind when they represent valuable firepower and armor.

2: Wasting time moving to the wrong point, such as outpacing a slower teammate who is already going for a cap and taking it instead of going for an open cap, therefore wasting the time they spent traveling and time you could have spent traveling elsewhere, or failing to cap a nearby point or moving off before the cap is complete. Likewise, if two or more faster mechs are already going for a point, you should not follow them to it. (One faster unit if it is more than a quarter of the way there. Not at all on larger maps like alpine.)

3: Friendly fire in any form or quantity, or failing to support teammates in a firefight (campers beware).

4: Not taking time with aim. By spreading damage across a wide area instead of a kill point or important weapon/leg slot, you are wasting time and ammo, and giving your enemy more time to damage you. It is more important to take an extra second to hit CT or a weak leg than it is to get the shot off quickly. This is part of why I favor a single gauss/AC20 on my BJ-1. It rewards me taking time for movement and careful aim by having a slow cooldown. Honestly, if they bumped gauss/AC20's CD to 5 seconds, I would hardly be affected.

5: Firing too many weapons, too often. Even if you have a massive amount of weaponry, it is more of a threat to you than your enemy if you don't have enough heatsinks to cool it effectively. Personally, I never let my heat rating drop below 1.60, which frankly, is a little low anyway. (My mechs are mastered, and this helps with heat dispersion. Unmastered mechs should have even more.) If you overheat in less than five salvos, you need less weapons, more sinks, or both. It isn't about how many weapons you have, it's about using a moderate amount of firepower for as long as possible. Survival > Gun Size.

6: Swarming. It does not take more than two or three mechs to take down one target. When the entire team all tries to chase one light or get in on a kill against an easy, half-dead target, the only things that happen are friendly fire and wasted time. Let the lights do the capping, let the mediums do the chasing, let the heavies do the fire support and let the assaults be battering rams/meat shields. You don't all need to chase.

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Weapons and Equipment

How you fit your mech is just as important as how you play your mech. While appealing, too much weaponry will overheat your mech, cause it to be too slow, or make it too vulnerable. There are tools to help you put builds together before you buy them. Smurfy's is my favorite.

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...echlab#modified

Also, here are some tips.

1: Always place ammo in the legs and head before anywhere else. With the exception of Gauss Ammo, all ammo types explode when destroyed. This means that if a section is critical (no armor left) and has ammo inside, that ammo can (and usually will) detonate and destroy everything around it. Cases help in the following way: The explosion is contained to the section it occupies. This WILL destroy XL engine extensions, killing you, but it will also prevent STD engines from taking damage from a side torso exploding.

2: While stacking only one type of weapon may seem powerful, most of these builds are opportunistic underperformers in the long run. It is much better to have a balanced array of weapons, usually a primary set and a secondary set. Missiles and Ballistics run somewhat cooler than Energy weapons, but require ammo. Blending these types is key to not overheating and making weight manageable.

3: The right engine size is key. If you are too slow, moving about will be hard. If your engine is too fast, valuable tons that could go to other equipment are wasted. STD engines are much sturdier than XL engines, but weigh quite a bit more. Usually, putting an XL engine on anything larger than a medium is frowned upon, because it makes larger mechs far too vulnerable. While there are always exceptions, most mechs under 50 tons need an XL engine to be able to field enough firepower to be effective and still be fast enough to survive.

4: Don't ignore equipment. For anyone with locking missiles, a Beagle Active Probe is a very valuable 1.5t. AMS is very effective at reducing incoming damage, especially to CT. I don't want to get into the math and physics of why, but missiles in the center of an LRM cloud are the first to come into range of the AMS, making it attack them first by priority (It has to do with travel time, chosen landing location and exact distances with AMS targeting priorities). Not putting an ECM on an ECM capable mech is just silly, as it is useful, even for information warfare purposes.

[Rugarou]

Excellent post man.

[Koniving]

I can agree with most of what's said here. Like given.

[Flak Kannon]

Well played friend!

Nice post.

[Johnny Marek Summers]

Here's a couple more.

Don't go over the hill.

Never stand behind your fellow drop buddies when they are peeking around a building or a hill.

[Stormwolf]

Here's how to win:

1. Copy latest overpowered build
2. Get teamspeak
3. Try not to be useless in battle
4. Look at the forums after every new patch
5. Go back to step #1

[oldradagast]

Given the current mediocre nature (IMHO) of 12 on 12, a few more:

1) Don't leave the blob of mechs. Stay in the Murderball unless you want to die to the other team's Murderball.

2) Capping probably isn't worth it. Thanks to capping now taking longer based on some odd assumption that this "balance" was needed since 12 on 12 was going to be full of fast mechs, you'll probably be dead or chased away by the enemy team's mech Murderball before your capping effort amounts to anything.

The above additions don't apply in 8 vs. 8 or balanced 12 vs. 12, whatever that is...

[Rando Slim]

I really like this except for one thing.......you honestly don't need 1.6 heat rating to be effective in battle if you are piloting something light or medium. Some mechs thats pretty much impossible to get a 1.6 heat rating unless you put like two lasers on it and nothing else and thats just not enough firepower, because most lights and meds don't have ballistic slots. Most builds between 1.2 and 1.4 is just fine, heat management is a useful skill that will allow you to compete just fine without gimping your damage because of trying to get to 1.6 heat efficinecy. Being in a light and having to make 6-8 runs at a target because youve only got two weapons is not viable because as you said, that wastes time. Better to plan an attack run, hit em with 6 weapons and get out altogether or cut the number of attacks you have to make by half or two thirds. In a mech too fat to escape, then yes maybe dps is better.