6 replies to this topic

[qki]

NOTE: This is not a comprehensive guide. It's not meant to go into the details and little nuances of everything. Rather, it is meant as a very concise look, at what the game is, and how to approach this hedgehog without getting a facefull of needles.
Much of this information goes without saying if you are familiar with the Battletech universe. If not, read on. You can always learn more about the lore on sarna.net, and bg.battletech.com

#1 rule of MWO:

Despite its (vaguely) humanoid appearance, your mech is a vechicle, not a suit of armour. It should be treated accordingly. Attampting to play this game like Call of Duty is just inviting trouble.


TYPES OF MECHS:

Before you get in the game, you need to pick a mech. Unless you spend some $$$ and get a bunch of MC to purchase your first mech that way, you will have to take the trial mechs out at least a few times. Since trial mechs change on a regular basis, it is impossible for me to know what will be available when you read this.

There are 4 weight categories:
Light (20 to 35 tons)
Medium (40 to 55 tons)
Heavy (60 to 75 tons)
Assault (80 to 100 tons)

There are no rules associated with each category. Rather, the mechs weight is important. A mech's weight is the sum of all its equipment (including armour, weapons etc.), and a mech's speed is derrived from a simple division of its engine rating by its weight. If mech engine rating/mech's weight = 6, then your speed is 97 km/h. If it's higher, you go faster - simple as that.
If you are familiar with other mechwarrior games, you may remember that the endgame was all about the heaviest 'mechs and the biggest guns. Not so in MWO. Here, every mech type has a place.

Heavy and assault mechs are the backbone of most games. They will be expected to do most of the "heavy lifting".

Medium mechs have a unique role. They lack the armour and firepower of the big guys, and the mobility of the lights. What they usually have, is a blend of both, that allows you to deploy your firepower where it is needed.

Light mechs are typically very fast and agile, if lightly armed and armoured. Besides going pew pew, they fulfil vital roles such as harassment, and a group of lights can swarm heavier mechs, and cripple, or even destroy them, fading before help arrives.


Whatever your pick, you will need to play to your strengths if you wish to be effective, so choose something that best suits your style.


WHERE IS MY HEALTH BAR??!

There is none. Even though MWO will give you a % health value, the actual system is a bit more complicated. In the lower left corner of your and upper right for your enemies) you will see the "paperdoll".

It shows different sections of your mech, and their status. Each one has two values - armour and internal structure. Armour varies from mech to mech, structure is asigned by tonnage. Two jenners may have different armour, while both, and the ravens as well, will have the same structure.

Shots first damage your armour, and when that's gone - your structure. Any hits, that damage your structure may cause critical hits, that will take one of your weapons out of action, and if the hit is on ammunition, the ammo goes boom and may possibly destroy the mech.

At any rate, destroying a location will disable all equipment in that location in addition to:

Head: destroys the mech
Center Torso: destroys the mech
Side Torso: destroys the corresponding arm. If the mech has an XL engine, also destroys the mech
Leg: lowers speed by 50% or down to 30 km/h, whichever is slower. Losing both legs destroys the mech.


RUNNING HOT

Firing weapons generates heat. Heat sinks installed in your mech do their best to dissipate it.
Reaching 100% on the heat scale will shut your mech down, and you become a helpless, stationary target (you don't want that). You can avoid this by hitting the oerride button, which will disable heat-shutdown for 5 seconds.

Any time your heat is above 100%, wether you are shutdown or not, you will take damage to your internal structure, that may even destroy your mech. Be careful.


PEW PEW PEW!!

There are 3 types of weapons in the game:

Energy weapons: generate substantial heat, but require no ammo. Includes lasers, flamers and PPC (particle projection cannon)

Ballistic weapons: heavier than energy weapons, and require ammo, but generate far less heat, making them mych etter for sustained fire. Ammo may explode if hit, exception being the gauss ammo, which does not explode (but the gauss rifle itself will if critically hit).

Missile weapons: come in two varieties. LRM (long range missiles) and SRM (short range). LRM are lock-on, long range weapons that have to travel 190m before arming (they do not explode otherwise). SRM are dumb-fire missiles with a bigger punch per missile, than LRMs. A special type, the streak SRM (available as streak SRM2) is a lock-on variety of SRM (that will not fire without a lock, and seeks random parts of the target mech when fired).


Additional equipment includes the Anti Missile System (AMS) that will attempt to shoot down incoming missiles, electronic warfare equipment (ECM), and other things.


Damage:

One thing to remember, is that the "damage dealt" stat on the scoreboard may be decieving. Damaging the arm and legs on a mech that gets destroyed by a shot to the CT effectively counts for nothing, so for the time being, concentrate on doing meaningful damage, and don't be discouraged if you come out without doing 600+

THAT'S IT!
That's what you need to play the game, and understand what is going on around you. If you wish to know more about a particular topic, you can always ask around, or seek out the appropriate guide.





ADVANCED STUFF:


Ergonomics:

Not a game issue per se, but still important. In short, you want your controls to feel natural, and that means keeping your weapon groups in order. Using a mouse with additional buttons can be a huge help here, and you still don't want more than 3-4 weapon groups.

That said, you don't want to put weapons with very different ranges into a single group, since doing so will either waste ammo, or generate lots of unnecessary heat, or force you to hold until the entire group is in range.

You also don't want hitscan (instant hit) weapons like lasers, and projectile weapons (autocannons, PPC) in the same group, since one is a straight-beam, and the other has travel time, that requires you to lead moving targets.

Mixing arm-mounted and torso-mounted weapons is acceptable, but not preferable, since the two have separate croshairs (arm mounted weapons have better coverage), but this can be remedied by initiating arm lock (check options).



Upgrades:

One of the first things you notice, is that heat is a cruel mistress. That is why double heatsinks are the first thing on any serious mechwarrior's list. Barring a few exceptions, that can operate equally vell with single heatsinks, upgrading will be a huge boon to your game.

Endo steel will reduce the weight of your internal structure by half (normally, it's 10% of your total weight, rounding up to the nearest half ton, so upgrading a 50 ton Centurion with ES, will give you an extra 2.5 tons). The cost is 14 "floating" critical slots, that have to be put aside for this upgrade.

XL engines are a real weight-saver. Normally, the engine is the heaviest part of your mech. Using XL owers it's weight by half (the reason the numbers do not add up is that every engine has a gyro, the weight of which is factored into the weight of the engine already, rather than being separate like in the board game). XL engines allow you to take a bigger engine (and go faster), bring more weapons, and armour.

They have one weakness though, and that is destroying your mech when you lose a side torso as well as the center one.

With a little practice, you can tell if your enemy is carrying an XL engine (target him with R, then look at his loadout that appears next to hix paperdoll in the upper right, then make a guess). If you suspect an XL engine, you can try to target a weaker, side torso (that will have less armour), and destroy him faster. Of course, that means landing your shots where you want them.



Tactics:

Unlike modern FPS games, destroying an enemy usually takes the combined effort of several teammates, rather than one, long burst from your trusty assault rifle. First thing to remember, is to avoid getting hit. A common mistake is rushing forward, hoping to quickly destroy an enemy, and instead getting torn apart by concentrated fire from his teammates.

A common tactic is the "deathball" - a group of mechs that moves together, and fires together. Tackling a deathball is a challenge that you will constantly meet, especially when playing solo.

First of all, keep cool, and approach the problem without getting fixated on the kill - it helps.

Harrassment:
If you are a light mech, you can try to break up an enemy deathball by coming at it sideways, and poking it with your weapons. If you are daring, you can dart between them, and disappear.

In assault games, you can initiate a base capture, forcing enemies to respond.
Ideally, some will turn around to deal with you, giving your team a momentary advantage. Of course in PUGs the odds of them using this advantage are rather slim, so don't get discouraged.




Picking a mech:

After getting through your first 25 games, or buying some MC, it will be time to get your own 'mech.

There are many cool battlemechs in this game, but, naturally, some are better than others. The big difference is maximum engine size, and weapon hardpoints. It's easy to see that the JR7-D, with 4 energy, and 2 missile hardpoints, is better than a SDR-5V, with naught but two energy hardpoints.

Picking a mech is one thing, equipping it with a killer loadout is another. Keep in mind, that in the world of PUGs, the games can be awfully one-sided, and having the best loadout may not save you. Conversely, people in pugs tend to relax more, and play mechs they wouldn't play otherwise, so the environment is more forgiving.

And anyway, to unlock elite pilot perks, you need to get basic unlocks on 3 variants of the same chassis, so it's not the end of the world if you pick wrong. In fact - with limited mech bays, you will most likely only get a chassis for the unlock, then sell it, and keep just the one you want to play. As for which ones you want, well. For competetive play, you wprobably want the best in their class. For pugs, whatever gives you joy to pilot. That said, the "Mach Tier List" varies from player to player.

Being a light pilot, I can vouch for the JR7-F Jenner being the best light mech chassis at the moment. The JR7-D is also very good, the RVN-3L used to be king at one point, and is still great with the ability to mount ECM. JR7-K is not as good as the D model, but still not too shabby.

I'd warn you to stay away from the SDR-5V and SDR-5K - they are an excercise in self-mutilation. The SDR-5D, with ECM and the ability to mount an ERPPC can make an annoying little sniper. Fun to play, if you can suffer your way through unlocking efficiencies on the other two.

The COM-2D, with ECM and the ability to mount 3 streak SRM2s used to be a great mech, but fell on hard times recently, with the changes to both streaks and ECM functionality. You can still squeeze out enough juice from the commandos to run pugs though.

[Victor Morson]

I really always steer newbies to the Centurion these days, if they're interested in brawling and/or just an easy to use starter 'mech that will last them at all levels of play.

The 9A with 3x SRM6 2x ML or the 9D with 2x LRM15 and a TAG are really two of the easiest effective 'mechs for beginners to get into with no drawbacks.

My only advice to Centurion pilots is to avoid arm mounted guns if possible, as the arms are extremely flimsy. The best builds are all chest mounted on the Centurion, with a standard engine on the brawling models whenever possible.

Again, easy to use + highly effective earns it my "best 'mech for a brand new player" award.

If you're interested in recon you may want to go light, and there's plenty of great heavies/assaults I could recommend (and do in my competitive thread), just saying this is a good place to start you can't go wrong with.

[qki]

I don't play mediums besides my AC20 YLW that I sometimes take for a spin - hence the last part deals with light mechs only.


One thing I forgot to mention:


The way missiles work in MWO, is a launcher will fire only as many shots per salvo, as the mech has actual tubes.

Thus, a JR7-D/K firing a SRM6 will fire it in two salvos, of 4 and 2 missiles respectively. A JR7-D firing two SRM4 (8 missiles) will fire all at once, since each launcher is considered separately.


For that very reason, SRM6 combos do not work well on the RVN-3L, as one of the launchers is a single-tube narc, which means that putting an SRM6 there will fire it as 6 missiles, one by one, and not a single, 6 missile salvo. Back when Streaks ruled the field, this was hardly an issue if you fired your 4 guided missiles in a 3+1 pattern, but with bigger launchers, that can be a problem.

A similar "bump" exists on the TBT-7M, and (in the future) on the TDR-5S (has an SRM2). The X-5 (i'm not 100% sure on this one) also has a pair of two-tube launchers.

[Victor Morson]

qki, on 23 August 2013 - 04:23 AM, said:

I don't play mediums besides my AC20 YLW that I sometimes take for a spin - hence the last part deals with light mechs only.

Oh I know. I was just filling in the blanks, since light piloting isn't for everybody and I figure a newbie can't go wrong with a sturdy Centurion.

qki, on 23 August 2013 - 04:23 AM, said:

One thing I forgot to mention:

The way missiles work in MWO, is a launcher will fire only as many shots per salvo, as the mech has actual tubes.

Yep, missile tubes are broken and you can do all kinds of experiments to see how they impact usefulness. It's a hard thing to guide because it varies based on the 'mech, tubes, and missiles.

A note for new players: The Highlander missile racks are broken currently, resulting in an odd firing pattern. Hopefully a fix is incoming.

[qki]

There was a time, though, when an SRM6 fired from a narc tube would have pinpoint accuracy up to 270m, but it only worked on stationary targets, or if you had a VERY steady hand. No longer though, and you get deviation firing the missiles individually.

[Nervilol]

Victor Morson, on 23 August 2013 - 03:52 AM, said:

I really always steer newbies to the Centurion blah blah

Well, stop doing it, even trial mechs are better...

[qki]

Actually, no. The 3xSRM6 2xML CN9-A is the best medium brawler one could wish for.

An AC20 hunchback with a 250 standard could keep up with the centurion, as could a number of other designs, so it's preference really. The cent will be slightly faster, or have an extra heatsink, or two, but it's close.


As strange as that sounds, I'd warn new players to stay away from assault mechs too. At the beginning at least.
While the previous mechwarrior endgame was all about the biggest mechs with the biggest guns, that's not true in MWO.
Assault mechs are slow, and cumbersome, making positioning crucial, and new players will often find themselves woefully out of position, turning their glorious 100 tons of war machine into a 100 ton deathtrap.