97 replies to this topic

[Fang01]

zudukai, on 13 December 2013 - 12:45 AM, said:

alternatively you can have a "cool" weapon or grouping to sustain or lower your heat levels.

Heat control is CRITICAL, more important then ANYTHING else aside from piloting, MORE important then accuracy AND tactics,

Highly agree with this. Using my Flame for example: I run three weapon types (AC10, SRM4/Artemis, 4 Mlas) across three groups ( 1 = ac10, 2 = ac10 + Srm, 3 = mlas) Left button is set to FSWG and right is set to group 3. Weapons are always split into the primary "cool group" of autocannon at distance for 10 dmg/autocannon backed by missiles at knife range for a combined 18 dmg, and the backup "Hot group" of the lasers for 20 dmg. Combined efficiency is 1.23 with the "cool group" checking in at over 2.0 and the "hot" at 1.46. Generally once the battle has come under 270m I'll charge firing both groups until I've reached 75% of heat cap then only fire the cool group until heat drops to 25% (OR knowingly blow through the cap if I see a guaranteed coup de grace develop)

For those wondering, I run a five button mouse but prefer to build only two (active) firing groups to save the extra buttons for target acquisition, zoom, and quick activation of certain modules

[Fang01]

Void Angel, on 17 December 2013 - 04:13 AM, said:

Guys, Victor has already been pretty soundly trounced - this is why he's stopped responding. Please don't invite him back by quoting him.

I dont necessarily read the entire thread before making comment

[Buckminster]

Actually, Khajja makes a very good point about controls in mech design. My joystick/mouse combo allows for 4 weapon groups. When I'm playing in Smurfy's, I also consider how I want to lay out my weapon groups, and make sure it'll fit into my control scheme.

A perfect example was my Battlemaster-1G. I wanted to keep it fairly stock, just to screw around in. It's base weapons are the PPC, 6 MLs, 2 MGs and an SRM6. I knew that I wanted to separate those 6 MLs into two groups of three, for better heat control. That only left me two more weapon groups, and with the PPC, MGs and SRM6 there was no easy way to combine them. With the wonky SRM hit detection, I decided to drop the SRM6, so that put me down to my four groups - PPC, 3 left MLs, 3 right MLs, MGs.

[Fang01]

Buckminster, on 17 December 2013 - 06:07 AM, said:

Actually, Khajja makes a very good point about controls in mech design. My joystick/mouse combo allows for 4 weapon groups. When I'm playing in Smurfy's, I also consider how I want to lay out my weapon groups, and make sure it'll fit into my control scheme.

A perfect example was my Battlemaster-1G. I wanted to keep it fairly stock, just to screw around in. It's base weapons are the PPC, 6 MLs, 2 MGs and an SRM6. I knew that I wanted to separate those 6 MLs into two groups of three, for better heat control. That only left me two more weapon groups, and with the PPC, MGs and SRM6 there was no easy way to combine them. With the wonky SRM hit detection, I decided to drop the SRM6, so that put me down to my four groups - PPC, 3 left MLs, 3 right MLs, MGs.

SRMs really seem to be ping dependent. Mine is fairly low and I generally dont suffer from the issues that most people complain about. I have noticed that when fired in larger groups they seem to have a higher instance of "not the kind of damage I thought I'd get" though.

[Modo44]

Khajja nar Jatargk, on 17 December 2013 - 10:17 AM, said:

SRMs really seem to be ping dependent.

It is really not so. SRM hit detections works fine with my 130+ ping. If you read the patch notes and other dev communication, connection instability (both yours, and that of your target) is what messes HSR up.

[MisterPlanetarian]

This thread has covered most topics, but I will throw a few bones based on my personal experiences.


The only mechs where I would reccomend against endo steel are the following, based of experience:
Awesome:
AWS-8Q, 8T, 9M(standard engines). Crit slots are needed for DHS

Stalker:
STK-3F, 5M, 5S, 4N. You need the crit slots for DHS, simple as that.

Battlemaster:
Every single one of them unless you plan on using a standard engine or an XL larger than 340. Most builds running XL engines while being slower than 70kph run far too hot with endo steel.

Catapult:
K2 4x Large Laser build only.

Don't use non-clan LRM's as a backup weapon, they are designed to be primirary weapon systems. IS LRM's have a minimum range and weigh so much that you are usually better off investing in other long range alternatives.

Front load your armor: you should always keep your back covered, avoid using more than 15 back armor on almost all mechs. Most of the damage you take comes from the front or side aslong as you don't run into an ambush. Keep your back turned where your friends are or near a wall. Strip leg armor first to the closest .5 ton, avoid excessive armor shedding from your legs on jump jet mechs or lights.

Ammo placement: Legs>Head>Arms, thats the rule. Reason: Gauss rifles explode for 15 damage 95% of the time when they are destroyed. Ammo explodes from anywhere between 24 to 250+ damage when it is destroyed, 25% of the time. Some rare few mechs with standard engines can get away with a .5 ton CASE and some ammo in the side torso. If you have AMS ammo store it in the head as it explodes for almost 250 damage if full. Never store ammo or a Gauss Rifle in a side torso with an XL engine, even with CASE. If you use a Gauss in the torso on a non XL build,

Heat sink padding: Use heatsinks to protect key components of your mech, such as ECM, BAP or your primary weapon systems from critical strikes by placing them in the same location. Weapons like the AC2's, Medium Laser and SRM's of any size are small enough that a Single DHS will absorb the first critical strike over half the time. Gauss rifle ammo should be used for the same purpose as it can't explode.


Example Build: Atlas D-DC.

fulfills every criteria: Heat sinks are used to protect the critical and extremely fragile ECM module aswell as the exposed ammo in the right arm. No ammo is stored where it risks exploding into your center torso and kill you.

Edited by MisterPlanetarian, 17 December 2013 - 11:26 AM.

[Fang01]

MisterPlanetarian, on 17 December 2013 - 11:18 AM, said:

This thread has covered most topics, but I will throw a few bones based on my personal experiences.


The only mechs where I would reccomend against endo steel are the following, based of experience:
Awesome:
AWS-8Q, 8T, 9M(standard engines). Crit slots are needed for DHS

Stalker:
STK-3F, 5M, 5S, 4N. You need the crit slots for DHS, simple as that.

Battlemaster:
Every single one of them unless you plan on using a standard engine or an XL larger than 340. Most builds running XL engines while being slower than 70kph run far too hot with endo steel.

Catapult:
K2 4x Large Laser build only.

Don't use non-clan LRM's as a backup weapon, they are designed to be primirary weapon systems. IS LRM's have a minimum range and weigh so much that you are usually better off investing in other long range alternatives.

Front load your armor: you should always keep your back covered, avoid using more than 15 back armor on almost all mechs. Most of the damage you take comes from the front or side aslong as you don't run into an ambush. Keep your back turned where your friends are or near a wall. Strip leg armor first to the closest .5 ton, avoid excessive armor shedding from your legs on jump jet mechs or lights.

Ammo placement: Legs>Head>Arms, thats the rule. Reason: Gauss rifles explode for 15 damage 95% of the time when they are destroyed. Ammo explodes from anywhere between 24 to 250+ damage when it is destroyed, 25% of the time. Some rare few mechs with standard engines can get away with a .5 ton CASE and some ammo in the side torso. If you have AMS ammo store it in the head as it explodes for almost 250 damage if full. Never store ammo or a Gauss Rifle in a side torso with an XL engine, even with CASE. If you use a Gauss in the torso on a non XL build,

Heat sink padding: Use heatsinks to protect key components of your mech, such as ECM, BAP or your primary weapon systems from critical strikes by placing them in the same location. Weapons like the AC2's, Medium Laser and SRM's of any size are small enough that a Single DHS will absorb the first critical strike over half the time. Gauss rifle ammo should be used for the same purpose as it can't explode.


Example Build: Atlas D-DC.

fulfills every criteria: Heat sinks are used to protect the critical and extremely fragile ECM module aswell as the exposed ammo in the right arm. No ammo is stored where it risks exploding into your center torso and kill you.

Are you saying the physical location of the sink in the build tree is critical? Or simply the presence of one?

Modo: That explains some things, they have always worked well for me (to the point that I wondered if people were complaining about their own lack of ability to simply lead a target) Even better post patch!

[INKBALL]

Well, i didnt read all posts but, first i figure what a want:

-Speed/DPS/Longrange/Brawler/MissleBoat/Support

Then i get started.Ex: I want speed+sniper.

Then i look for jumpjet, best Xlengine then i work with whats remaining (2xac2+erll ?) on a 55tons...

[Rhakhas]

Mercer Skye, on 13 December 2013 - 04:56 PM, said:

Better yet, if you've built something that can overheat in Frozen City....

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...69c25607b5d7339

And that was before ghost heat!

[Rhakhas]

Void Angel, on 17 December 2013 - 03:03 AM, said:

Yesss... It is glorious. The only thing is that for some reason it can't account for flamers. Smurfy tells me they "generate infinite heat," which isn't literally true, obviously. But I don't know what he meant by that, so I can't explain it.

Flamers seem to generate an increasing amount of heat the longer you hold the button down, with some unknown (by me anyway) cooldown period. The cooling efficiency calculator can't handle them because they don't generate consistent heat over time.

On topic, I tend to just buy chassis I think look cool, then experiment "in the field" with various weapon combinations until I find something I like. Which has been getting more challenging as I try not to reuse builds across different mechs.

Or I just ask myself, "How hard can I troll the other team?"
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...9bffbdb178125c0

[Wildflame]

Two points I didn't see addressed while I skimmed through the thread (if covered already, apologies for the repost).

1. 'Mech building is personal and so must be to some extent an iterative process. I think very little of tearing apart my builds and doing them over, and over, and over until I get what is 'right' for me. This could involve major changes from match to match, or minor things such as swapping a ton of ammo for a heat sink or vice versa, or shifting armour front/back on a torso. The only major things you should not be iterating on are changes involving buying a new engine, or swapping upgrades, because that gets expensive quickly.

Don't get too stuck on making an 'optimal' build in Smurfy. There is no guarantee an 'optimal build' for someone else is such for you. Sure, it improves your odds - but ultimately a build can only prove itself in combat.

2. While on the subject of cost, remember that it costs you nothing to strip another chassis to get items to put on a new chassis, other than a little time and memory work. Except for the four or so 'Mechs I run regularly, I strip out all my other 'Mechs to save me poking and hunting when doing a new build. This goes double for engines!

[Theaus]

Lots of good points, just wanted to add that I always start by checking the hardpoints. Once you
Know what the limits of each chassis is, then you just have to figure out what role you trying to play.
Some mechs are more versatile than others, think about what role you like to play and don't force a mech into a role it isn't suited for. Scroll through the list of mechs on smurfy's and think about what
Different builds you could make. And see how the variants vary. Remember you don't have to use all the hardpoints. Some mechs offer unique configs either great or terrible. I prefer to specialize to one or two weapon systems and I never carry more than two types of ammo.

[MisterPlanetarian]

Khajja nar Jatargk, on 18 December 2013 - 08:25 AM, said:

Are you saying the physical location of the sink in the build tree is critical? Or simply the presence of one?

Yes


It needs to be in the same location to share the same critical strike chance. A heatsink in the engine or arm won't protect a weapon in the side torso from getting critted. Always try to fill out a few crit slots with heatsinks to pad your weapons and protect them. You will see alot less weapon destructions from stray fire. Single lucky PPC shot won't be as likely to destroy a weapon for example if you have heatsinks in the same location. Nothing will protect you against focused machine gun fire though.

3x Medium lasers occupy three critical slots, A single AC10 or PPC crit will destroy one of them 100% of the time. If you have two double heatsinks in the same side torso the lasers occupy three out of nine total critical slots, giving the first crit a 66% chance of impacting a heatsink instead. It doesnt matter which order you put them in, only that they sit in the same location.

Edited by MisterPlanetarian, 19 December 2013 - 04:53 AM.

[Orbit Rain]

Stopped reading after middle of the first page, so may be repeating stuff:

What can this mech do that no other mech can do? (eg, go 93 jump jets and an AC20, go 110 and carry five streaks/lrms, etc) What role will this mech excel at? (DFS, IDF, etc.) Is this build for solo pugging, 4mans or 12 mans? What's the range profile? Can/should it boat something? (ppc's, ml's, lrms, DHS ( thus no endo lol ) etc. Build as a fast ride and a fat (slow) ride.

Each mech and each variant for the most part has it's own personality. The mechbuilding game within this game challenges you to learn that mech's personality.

The short answer is: I start by stripping it, filling the hardpoints, add ammo/heatsinks, then see what engine fits...along with armor-tweaking, DHS/Endo additions.

[Sandpit]

I start with a chassis
Then I decide what I want my "main" weapon system as. Once I've got that idea I build around that. I'll generally go into smurfy, load the stock loadout and then remove stuff from there. I'll usually stick with the stock engine at first, drop in my weapon system I'm wanting to build around and then max out the armor.
From there I adjust as needed for armor and heat efficiency. I generally try to have an overall basic idea of the role I'm trying to fill with that particular mech before I decide what weapon.

If I'm looking for a good squirrel hunter I'll start with weapons that best fit that role. (Usually SSRMs for me) and go from there.

If I'm looking for a brawler I generally look at what KIND of brawler I want. Do I want a heavily armored slow moving tank that deals front-end damage or do I want more of a rear line keep those flankers from taking out my fire support mechs and go with SRMs and MLs and such.

Having at least a general idea on what role you're wanting to fill is the best way I've found to come up with a good design that works for me.

[Victor Morson]

Void Angel, on 17 December 2013 - 04:13 AM, said:

Guys, Victor has already been pretty soundly trounced - this is why he's stopped responding. Please don't invite him back by quoting him.

Say my name on a forums three times and I appear.

Seriously, Christmas vaccation, not trouncing, has slowed my posting speed but I'm back to do some reading and catch up on what I missed...

[Victor Morson]

Void Angel, on 13 December 2013 - 04:46 PM, said:

Plus usually lower damage and crappier heat efficiency in every case. You also added PPCs to Atlases, particularly to brawling Atlases, which tells me you have no idea how to drive that chassis. Feel free to message me for remedial instruction, but that's really outside the scope of this thread.

All you are doing is revealing yourself as an utterly low tier player, Void. PPC+AC20 is a solid setup, and yes, you can get away with it without ER PPCs.

No matter what, however, they are infinitely superior to those DHS monstrosities I was linked, which were poorly designed and terrible from the ground up. The designs I posted could work them 3:1 without issue.

Void Angel, on 13 December 2013 - 04:46 PM, said:

So, not only are your builds inferior in combat, they're actually repurposed to do things that the chassis is bad at.

The builds are not the problem Void, even if they are on generally sub-optimal chassis in the first place. The problem is you can't see it.

[Victor Morson]

zudukai, on 13 December 2013 - 05:05 PM, said:

UAC/5 is a very powerful weapon with no minimum range, it excels at brawling with it's high rate of fire and decent ammo per ton,

Highly endorsed.

zudukai, on 13 December 2013 - 05:05 PM, said:

SRMS, brawling weapon.

In their current shape, trash.

zudukai, on 13 December 2013 - 05:05 PM, said:

Medium lasers, medium range, standard weapon, if you needed a standard weapon to measure all against, this is it. fits perfectly within a brawler.

Backup firepower only, primary on lights. Some gimmicky laserboats. Absolutely NOT worth the space on that Atlas build in low numbers.

zudukai, on 13 December 2013 - 05:05 PM, said:

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
PPC, long range weapon, hot, high output per round, long recycle, minimum range. this weapon does not like rapid fire, it does not like getting in the face of other mechs.

hahahahhaha. Maybe you haven't been keeping up on current events pal, but PGI doesn't think this way! It fires every 4 seconds. What is the AC/20's recycle? 4 seconds!

Your whole basis is flawed already.

zudukai, on 13 December 2013 - 05:05 PM, said:

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
it looks to me like you wanted to post your meta highlander in a brawl against this D-DC, you should see how fast they fall when you get a case of suddenly atlas. or you are kept busy and this D-DC facerolls you.

The D-DC is inferior to the Highlander in every single way except ECM. There's no getting around it.

joedawg39s, on 13 December 2013 - 05:19 PM, said:

Oh noes! That stalker has ghost heat! He might need to fire his weapons in a controlled manner!

"Controlled Manner": Firing weapons in a way that will cause them to miss a single location, and instead hit several locations as the duration allows the victim time to evade. In otherwords, firing your weapons terribly.

Void Angel, on 14 December 2013 - 02:40 PM, said:

I'm told that if you just hold down the mouse button, you don't have the ghost jamming problem - it's only if you're clicking it. It seems to work like that on the testing grounds,

This just in: Testing Grounds has been using broken weapons data for about, well, two builds since it was put in. It's entirely worthless to test anything, at all, except maps.

Arcadies, on 16 December 2013 - 06:51 AM, said:

Who the **** is Victor Morson? I don't think that guy knows what he's talking about. Is he some sort of high rank league player or something?

I play in a competitive unit and most of what I am saying is in line with the other competitive units. There's a whole other metagame that is centered around high alpha, good flexability builds that absolutely roll most of what is suggested in by folks who don't really play in these kinds of groups.

I'm mostly sharing that information with new players in the hope it can help them play their best.

Many others here WISH everyone ran TT style 'mechs and will as such try to push terrible ideas on people because they believe running bad weapon loadouts = "fun." The long and short of it.

Edited by Victor Morson, 27 December 2013 - 12:18 AM.

[Victor Morson]

Rushin Roulette, on 16 December 2013 - 07:36 AM, said:

Good to see that you have absolutely no idea what you are writing about (As usual)... The only Mech listed by Void Angel which would even remotely have a Ghost heat problem would be the Stalker with 4 SRM6 launchers. All other mechs and weapon systems are completely ghost heat free, because the individual weapon systems stay under the ghost heat threshhold (Plus, all weapon systems harmonize well together for brawler builds with no more than 3 basic weapon groups per build).

And every single one of them would be worked in a manner similar to a level 50 RPG character curbstomping a level 2 NPC by a proper 'mech. They're HORRIBLE builds; that Stalker is literally less effective than even a Griffin in the same role, in part because of the Ghost Heat!

Rushin Roulette, on 16 December 2013 - 07:36 AM, said:

Your builds on the other hand are basically terrible (apart from the DDC build). The other 2 mechs are trying to be a bit of brawler and a bit of sniper while not being good at either one.... what is the point of mixing SRMs and regular PPCs? You can snipe a bit with PPCs, but once you are being circled... the PPCs are useless and the SRMs currently have a hit detection issue. Btw, you Stalker is way worse, because it has a lower heat efficiency than the non-"improved" one from Void and it still has the ghost heat problem of 4 SRM6 launchers ontop of that.

To be fair, the Stalker and Atlas are both sub-par chassis to begin with; if not for the DDC you'd never see them. So those are making the best of a bad situation.

The non-endo builds are absolutely trash and there's no getting around it. Terrible firepower, terrible crit placement, terrible everything. There should be zero support in here so not to confuse newbies they in anyway resemble a decent design.

Rushin Roulette, on 16 December 2013 - 07:36 AM, said:

Take the builds from good players, adapt them to your personal play style and use that, make a completely new build to tailor fit your play style and get good at those builds.... that is how you get to be a good player.

And start by looking at competitive builds from competitive units, OP. Youtube Merc Star or the like if you want to see some of the better units in the game and get a feel for what they drive.

You'll also notice they tend to stick to much of the advice I give here (to much resistance.)

Buckminster, on 17 December 2013 - 06:07 AM, said:

That only left me two more weapon groups, and with the PPC, MGs and SRM6 there was no easy way to combine them. With the wonky SRM hit detection, I decided to drop the SRM6, so that put me down to my four groups - PPC, 3 left MLs, 3 right MLs, MGs.

Part of your problem was bothering to waste a seperate group on MGs.
Most of your problem was taking MGs at all! heh

[sneeking]

victor has lots to say ( a few of us do ) he takes it more seriously than most

I will tell you to lrm boat pure in an a1c or go 2xuac5 with no laser backup in a yenlo lol

he will tell you not to follow my bad advice...

Edited by sneeking, 27 December 2013 - 07:23 AM.