112 replies to this topic

[The Unknown Pilot]

DavidHurricane, on 17 January 2014 - 07:40 AM, said:

This is a good start build

This is what I pwn in

Honestly, one of those builds, I can do on my 55 ton Shadowhawk and JUMP.

The other will overheat in Antarctica.

If it's a "tank" people want to build, buy a T-bolt.

Edited by The Unknown Pilot, 19 January 2014 - 01:33 PM.

[Mad Dog Morgan]

I've liked running my Orions as high precision Ballistics Platforms due to the chest-mounted ballistic hardpoint on most of them. Typically would be best to toss a long-range ballistic in there as you close in. My best matches have occurred with a Gauss in the right torso.

The ON1-M (The equivalent of the Protector, minus the C-Bill Boost) is a good choice for those wishing to bring devastating ranged firepower, but I chose to go with the K and the V variants.

They are excellent mixed-weapon platforms. Lots of options for builds, which I like quite a bit.

Edited by Vaskadar, 19 January 2014 - 02:00 PM.

[White Bear 84]

NRP, on 30 December 2013 - 02:46 PM, said:

It's a mech to run when you're bored of running other mechs.

Or when you have bought every other mech and just need to buy something else for the sake of it...

Personally this mech has 0 appeal to me, im not even keen on its look, weird cockpit and borked torso shape. It is one of those mechs I see on the battlefield and think meh, nothing to really worry about. I mean, it is (humorously) nicknamed the onion.. ..lets chop it up, put it in a salad and be done with it!

[Molossian Dog]

I was disappointed with the Orions when they came out. This was a Mech I wanted to love, but just could not.

I don´t give a fig about the current meta, but yes the Orion is not suited for it, even if you run the popular cheese-builds on it. Its physical characteristics are also bad. It is mostly torsos, unpleasantly tall, the arms offer no protection whatsoever, its back is broad like the side of a barn and the hardpoints are all low placed. And despite the hitbox changes still feels squishy to me.

That being said...the Orion offers advantages as well and I slowly begin to warm to them. It has alot of hardpoints. You should use them all. I am having the most success with builds that are actually very close to the stock builds. The swiss-army knife i,e, the jack-of-all trades approach. Sounds like the stupid "fire support" role or "only good when noone is shooting at it"? I know.

But it works. With one condition. Don´t take one, take two. From my point of view the Orions greatest advantage is also its greatest disadvantage. It is a team player. It relies on synergy effects.
Specialists will always beat generalists if they control the circumstances. (i.e. you run straight into a AC/40 Jager) On the other hand groups of generalists can beat groups of specialists because it is far more difficult to control circumstances as the numbers on both sides go up. To use the above example four AC/40 Jager can´t jump a trap as easily as a single one can.

Of course every Mech is better when working as part of a team. But a generalist always has a tool to contribute to the team effort regardless of the circumstances. Not so the specialist.

Yes, the generalist approach requires coordination, or even a premade. But it works.

Edited by Molossian Dog, 19 January 2014 - 03:37 PM.

[Girth Fillmore]

I don't know what it is about my Orion K, but it's by far my most successful 'mech. It seems to be largely ignored in brawls, and that allows me to do a lot of damage. It can also take a good amount of punishment, which helps.

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...20e7af86c847e3c


It's slow, the hitboxes aren't great, but it works for me.

Edited by Girth Fillmore, 19 January 2014 - 07:32 PM.

[Kjudoon]

The Orion is a mashup of the Catapult, Cataphract and Jagermech.
It can act like a Jager but with arms that do protect the torso better, but not as low as the cataphract. It can fire missiles as well as about any Catapult. The only thing weapon wise it does poorly is ballistics which is the only thing beyond Jumpjets keeping it out of competative play.
It does all this and with 5-10 extra tons for more room to put more stuff.

I have successfully done the LRM mech with the V, VA and K variants. The V is not worth the time of day IMHO because of it's ballistic placements (and I hate ACs anyway) The V and VA are excellent support mechs with XL engines, and can brawl with just about every mech in the game if you're smart about it.

It's major weakness? No Jumpjets. Really, that's it that I can see since they did the hitbox fixes. I highly recommend the K or VA for those who want a first big mech that can do pretty much anything any other heavy can do except jump.

[Wildstreak]

The Orion is actually designed as a Command Mech. Since Command functions are not well represented in MWO, it does not seem to do as well as it should.

[RiotHero]

Kjudoon, on 19 January 2014 - 07:44 PM, said:

I have successfully done the LRM mech with the V, VA and K variants. The V is not worth the time of day IMHO because of it's ballistic placements (and I hate ACs anyway) The V and VA are excellent support mechs with XL engines, and can brawl with just about every mech in the game if you're smart about it.

My V is sitting at an average of 430 damage per game. That is including every single match and it's still going up. I don't get how it could not be worth the time of day. Correct me If I'm wrong here but, aren't all Orion ballistic hard points in the exact same spot? Right torso slightly above the right arm?

[Kjudoon]

Right torso even with bicep and elbow. If you run em, don't run an XL, but then you don't do much anything else. It's why I never bothered with ballistics on em. There is just not a good LRM/Ballistic build that I found for an ON1.

[dr bongstorm]

the purpose of orions: to be awesome.

I elited mine, favourite is the k. ac 10, 4 medium lasers 2 srm 6s, endo, 350 xl. srms on mouse 1 ac on mouse two lasers on E.

I swear by this bad boy. I have a big pile of mechs, and I find this just feels right. the combination of it's movement speed, nice, predicible cluster of srms, short cool down on the ac and all four mediums being arm mounted to be an incredible combination. add to that the very fast torso twist and high movement speed once elited and i have never been afraid to 1 on 1 anything on the battle field. 75 tons packs a lot of firepower and armour and when it moves like a medium, you can **** up basically anything.

122 matches in, average damage of 409, k/d of just under 2. i think this thing is highly underrated and will take it over any of my victors any day. others might be better on paper, but this thing just works in the real world (of mechwarrior...which is a pretend world.)

Edited by dr bongstorm, 04 February 2014 - 02:24 PM.

[Clideb50]

The way I see the Orion is like a mini-Atlass. It'll probably see more use when weight limits come in, but for the most part; yea jack of all, master of none.

[Alianton]

I quite like the Stock orion K, played one game on it so far (my Own and not the trial one) and did 400 damage, with one kill and 6 assists *shrug* more fun that my old BJ-3 that's for sure

[Vanguard319]

I've been doing pretty well with a ON1-V. Aside from adding DHS, AMS, and Endo, I have been having quite a bit of success in close combat with the stock weapons and armor, killing mech of similar weight. The LRM 15 gives it some capability at long range, but the AC/10, med lasers, and SRM 4s make it a pretty powerful mech in close combat.

[IraqiWalker]

I've been running my Orion 1K with 4MLs, AC20, 2SRM4s, and it's been a blast. I don't engage enemies until they are within 400 meters or less, and then I just rush them, and wreck them.

My K started out with 4MPLs, AC10, and 2SRM4s, and that was fun, but the range was too short. However, the AC 10 allowed me to poke people from a distance and whittle them down, until I got close enough to finish the job.

[Alianton]

I think I want to replace my SRMs with 2 more MLs and a ton of AC10 ammo... gives me a bit more medium range weapons, tho I'm worried about the heat of 4x MLs... *shrug*

[IraqiWalker]

Alianton, on 01 June 2014 - 11:13 PM, said:

I think I want to replace my SRMs with 2 more MLs and a ton of AC10 ammo... gives me a bit more medium range weapons, tho I'm worried about the heat of 4x MLs... *shrug*

Chain fire my friend.

Also, test out your actual heat under real battlefield conditions (chosen by map btw) on this handy dandy Heat Simulator

[Alianton]

yeah iraqiwalker, i just tried the 4xMLs... freaking hot... I've now gone to AC10, LRMs and 2MLs with 2 standard Heatsinks (with one ton of AC10 replacing the SRM ammo)

[Lyoto Machida]

Only read pages 1 and 4...does nobody run the Orion as an LRM boat???

My V (LRMs) is at 2.48 KDR (104/42) with an average damage per game of 506.
The VA (LRMs) is currently at 2.0 KDR (60/30) with 428 damage/game.
The K, on the other hand (which I usually run as a Marauder), is only at 1.67 (10/6) with 304 damage per game.

If I could run LRMs on the K, I would also. I do like the mini Atlas setup also but it's hard to pull myself away from the thought of running a Marauder (2 PPC/2 ML/AC5) on the battlefield.

[n r g]

juxstapo, on 30 December 2013 - 02:02 PM, said:

Theory and philosophy again, this isn't intended as a "Compare my Smurfy to his Smurfy" thread.

Just as soon as they patched in, my brother sprung for the Protector and I followed suit.
Once the standards hit I snagged a -K (yaay), and a -VA (boooo). Now I've found numerous builds that give solid performance to the Onion, but... has anyone else nailed down a particular role for this thing?

The very low slung weapons mounts, save for the missle rack, might suggest a brawler, or at least a close range specialist, but personally my experience in this regard hasn't been favorable. (Mostly pilot error I'm sure).

The two places where the Orion seems to 'fit' (to me, I must be quick to aknowledge this is all opinion and conjecture), is either as an LRM carrier; not so much a "boat" as a "mech carrying a lot of em"). Or as a medium range direct fire support.

As I said, the fact that the weapons are mounted right on the centerline preclude much long
range sniping, you simply have to expose too much of the mech. And for me the in-your-face performance has been poor. But if you stick it on the second string and use it to direct fire against the opponents of the brawlers/front line units, then it really seems to shine. However, I kinda hate the fact that I've drawn this opinion about a lot of heavies, know what I mean?
"This mech is really great as long as they are shooting at everyone else!!"
Pilot error and poor technique again.

I can't overstate that this is intended as a good nature'd over-a-cuppa-joe discussion of theory and opinions, not a hostile and competitive Mechlab comparo/critique

Purpose of the Orion? To be killed by other mechs.

[Alianton]

I kind of Like the orion for a medium range mech. i've got stock K, removed the SRM for another ton of AC ammo and two std heat sinks, pretty good for a midish range basher