4831 replies to this topic

[Adlada]

Common and Uncommon Locust Builds:
LCT-1E

Spoiler

Common 1E Builds:
6SPL, AMS LCT-1E
6ML, AMS LCT-1E
AMS should be off by default, alternatively switch the AMS+1/2 Ton Ammo for max armour.
Uncommon 1E Builds:
LPL LCT-1E
ERPPC LCT-1E

I came up with this thing, kinda fun even if it is super fragile....

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...730e187521efc41

[IraqiWalker]

ArcturusWolf, on 21 December 2015 - 01:13 AM, said:

Not a locust, but still non-meta. Kitfox is regarded as terrible in the community; but honestly, it all comes down to how you use it. If you use the mech as it is intended to be used, you WILL do well regardless. People who like crowing about meta usually can't use anything other than their meta FOTM crutches. Just keep doing what you find fun, and let the others be damned.

Another benefit to running what you enjoy rather than FOTM, is that pilots who only know meta, and FOTM builds, will have a hard time processing what you're doing, and won't know how to deal with you properly.

Adlada, on 21 December 2015 - 11:31 PM, said:

Hi everybody! I just found this game about a week ago, went straight to locusts... something about them was calling me. Managed to blow all of my money on three locusts and some weapons. I have the 3M to elite tier, the 1V and 3S are basic their with some of the elite unlocks. I have found that in quick matches I can usually get in the 300-400 damage range with a kill or two, had a couple six kill games with 900+ damage. Now though... I can't run any other mech, they're just so slow... So I don't think I will ever leave the cockpit of this beautiful mech for very long.

That is amazing performance this early in your career. Glad to have you with us, and feel free to share your stories, and questions.

ArcturusWolf, on 22 December 2015 - 01:35 AM, said:

Also, PSA to all locust pilots here:

Locust Submarine Mode [ON] OFF. Most water maps can have bits of deep water; forest colony and river city come to mind. Locusts are short enough to have their cockpit fully submerged while active in these. If you are in Conquest, your team is dead but you are really, REALLY far ahead in caps, find the deepest piece of water away from the action and power down. The only part of you that sticks out will be the antenna on your head, and two of the topmost E-hardpoints on the arms. They'll have a really hard time finding you!

Also, water acts like an amazing force field against enemy weapons fire.

See, while you are submerged, your projectiles, and lasers will hit the above water enemies for their regular damage. However, when their projectiles, and beams enter water, they weaken. Lasers deal half the damage they're supposed to, missiles will just pop on the surface, and I think ballistics end up doing half damage as well. It's a great way to frustrate your opponent if you are dancing around them in deep water.

[kanamisan]

I am trying 6x ml's on the 1e, and wow they make so much heat, the extra range is nice, but you get a few less shots. not fully convinced about it.

the 3s did alot of work today where I managed to get a solo kill on a huncback, kill most damage on an atlas and did some damage on a jenner f, even managed to spend all of my ammo, all in 4ish min or so, right before a friendly hits takes my side torso off with a ac20. somehow that was a win, also, only got 333 damage dealt. but I feel it was quite solid performance.

[Fox With A Shotgun]

kanamisan, on 22 December 2015 - 04:04 AM, said:

I am trying 6x ml's on the 1e, and wow they make so much heat, the extra range is nice, but you get a few less shots. not fully convinced about it.

6ML on the 1E is a terrible, terrible idea. I think I posted a comparison of the various ML - SPL builds with varying amounts of heatsinks a couple of pages back, but the general outcome is this:

- You're in a Locust. You are FAST. And I mean FAST. You don't need that extra range if you can get in, unload till you're almost overheated, and get out like you've just eaten jalapeno chillies.
- Locusts do not have the TrueDub load of a light that can pack at least a XL255 engine. This means that you will always have less heat capacity and dissipation than any other light.
- MLs run fairly hot for their damage. 5 damage for 4 heat. Longer burn time means that your Locust is going to stay out there, exposed, for longer than it would otherwise need to. If you move around, you aren't doing full damage because your laser is going to stray off target for some of that time. If you don't move around, you're going to eat an alpha that's going to blow you up.
- SPLs do amazing damage to heat ratio. With the Locust's poor heat capacity and dissipation, you want to be able to dish out as much damage as possible before overheating to maximise your damage output. The IS SPL and IS LPL are actually among some of the best weapons for heat efficiency in their range brackets. With the short burn time on all pulse lasers, these make sure that you do more damage even when running around like a madman.

So in summary:
- Don't use MLs. I've run the calculations before, and you'd be lucky to scrape 2.0 sustained DPS with it on a 6-ML build. Even on a more conservative 4-ML build with 2 extra DHS, it only bumps up the sustained DPS to around 2.25, with a much smaller alpha.
- Range gains are nearly negligible due to your speed. Unless the difference is absolutely huge (think LL vs SPL, or ERLL vs LL), it's always better to use the shorter ranged weapon. Even then, LPL > LL, and SPL > SL. There is never a reason to use either ML or MPL as both of these are too heavy and too hot for the damage and range you get.
- MLs and MPLs burn for too long to use as effective knife-fighting weapons, and are in that uncomfortable zone where your range isn't long enough to poke without fear of accurate counter fire, and burn too long for them to use as effectively close-up as SL or SPLs.

As an added bonus; I've tried a 6-SL build with 3 extra DHS as a refit of the common 6-SPL 1E. It runs *very* cool, to the point where if you set the SLs to chainfire, it will generate ZERO heat on Terra Therma or Tourmaline Desert. This effectively points to a sustained DPS greater than around 3 on hot maps, and more than 4 on cold maps.

Edited by ArcturusWolf, 22 December 2015 - 04:43 AM.

[kanamisan]

ArcturusWolf, on 22 December 2015 - 04:39 AM, said:

6ML on the 1E is a terrible, terrible idea. I think I posted a comparison of the various ML - SPL builds with varying amounts of heatsinks a couple of pages back, but the general outcome is this:

- You're in a Locust. You are FAST. And I mean FAST. You don't need that extra range if you can get in, unload till you're almost overheated, and get out like you've just eaten jalapeno chillies.
- Locusts do not have the TrueDub load of a light that can pack at least a XL255 engine. This means that you will always have less heat capacity and dissipation than any other light.
- MLs run fairly hot for their damage. 5 damage for 4 heat. Longer burn time means that your Locust is going to stay out there, exposed, for longer than it would otherwise need to. If you move around, you aren't doing full damage because your laser is going to stray off target for some of that time. If you don't move around, you're going to eat an alpha that's going to blow you up.
- SPLs do amazing damage to heat ratio. With the Locust's poor heat capacity and dissipation, you want to be able to dish out as much damage as possible before overheating to maximise your damage output. The IS SPL and IS LPL are actually among some of the best weapons for heat efficiency in their range brackets. With the short burn time on all pulse lasers, these make sure that you do more damage even when running around like a madman.

So in summary:
- Don't use MLs. I've run the calculations before, and you'd be lucky to scrape 2.0 sustained DPS with it on a 6-ML build. Even on a more conservative 4-ML build with 2 extra DHS, it only bumps up the sustained DPS to around 2.25, with a much smaller alpha.
- Range gains are nearly negligible due to your speed. Unless the difference is absolutely huge (think LL vs SPL, or ERLL vs LL), it's always better to use the shorter ranged weapon. Even then, LPL > LL, and SPL > SL. There is never a reason to use either ML or MPL as both of these are too heavy and too hot for the damage and range you get.
- MLs and MPLs burn for too long to use as effective knife-fighting weapons, and are in that uncomfortable zone where your range isn't long enough to poke without fear of accurate counter fire, and burn too long for them to use as effectively close-up as SL or SPLs.

As an added bonus; I've tried a 6-SL build with 3 extra DHS as a refit of the common 6-SPL 1E. It runs *very* cool, to the point where if you set the SLs to chainfire, it will generate ZERO heat on Terra Therma or Tourmaline Desert. This effectively points to a sustained DPS greater than around 3 on hot maps, and more than 4 on cold maps.

ya, I can see that. though there are times when I do wish I had a bit more range to work with.

anyway, I had another memorable match in the pirates bane. crashed when loading up conquest on mining collective. when I finaly loaded in, my team was down three caps and would end up losing out loseing the two we had, I ended up taking on a clan missile boat solo who was only yellow on most of his armor, ended up finishing him off with a bit of lrm help at range, though I will admit he was a terible shot and failed to do more then yellow damage on a few spots of armor to me. after that I decapped two of the caps and moved in towards my teammates on the other side, by the time I got to them, the other team was up to 500 points, but had only two left, I came in and helped my last remaining teammate two v two a ach and a novacat, I got the kill on the nova and got most damage on the ach, finished the match with 458 damage after missing the first few min do to the crash, and to top it off, it was a really close game, 698 points for the other team before will killed the ach and won it (we only had 295)

[Not A Real RAbbi]

ArcturusWolf, on 22 December 2015 - 12:11 AM, said:

That doesn't surprise me. IIRC the trial one was boating CSPL, which is a ridiculously good weapon (3 heat for 6 dam, low CD, almost the same range as an IS MPL). It's far more forgiving than IS SPL.

Yeah. 5-6 of those, with the speed of almost a Jenner, and surprisingly good hit boxes? It's beast.

Back to the LOLcust. I recall some time ago, a particularly good and well-known light pilot on the other team in a LCT-1V with a single ERLL. Now, the -1V gets RIDICULOUS laser quirks (50% cooldown, 50% duration, 15% range). Thing is, some other LOLcusts get at least DECENT ones, too. I'm wondering if anyone's tried that in a PB with the ECM aboard (lose a few points off the arms/head, and it fits with the XL 190). It's fairly nonstandard, and probably not a big earner for most (though he got like 600-ish damage and a few kills on Tourmaline in his -1V). Just wondering.

[Fox With A Shotgun]

TheRAbbi, on 22 December 2015 - 05:55 AM, said:

Yeah. 5-6 of those, with the speed of almost a Jenner, and surprisingly good hit boxes? It's beast.

Back to the LOLcust. I recall some time ago, a particularly good and well-known light pilot on the other team in a LCT-1V with a single ERLL. Now, the -1V gets RIDICULOUS laser quirks (50% cooldown, 50% duration, 15% range). Thing is, some other LOLcusts get at least DECENT ones, too. I'm wondering if anyone's tried that in a PB with the ECM aboard (lose a few points off the arms/head, and it fits with the XL 190). It's fairly nonstandard, and probably not a big earner for most (though he got like 600-ish damage and a few kills on Tourmaline in his -1V). Just wondering.

I don't have a PB, but I can imagine it to be vastly inferior to either the 1V or the 3V. Those quirks just aren't big enough to warrant using the PB over one of the more combat-oriented Locusts. Not to mention the PB is actually one of the squishiest Locusts out there (no additional armor/struct vs. baseline Locust +16 Armor LL/RL), and has the 1E's greatly reduced agility (only baseline Locust +25% accel / 50% decel).

With ECM being neutered in this current iteration of balancing, I think the PB may be in an even worse spot than the 1E is currently in. It lacks the hardpoint count to boat small energy weapons, and it lacks the agility to dodge properly. ECM is given far too much weight in balancing this one, I think.

If anyone wants to have a bit of fun, grab a LCT-3V and slap on a LPL and a range module. Your LPL has almost the same reach as a baseline ERLL, with greatly reduced cooldown, burn time AND increased damage. Not as punchy as the rapidfire LCT-1V with 1x LPL, but has much improved range.

[kanamisan]

well, had another "carry" game where I ended up capping several points in my 3s, as well as acting as a spotter do to running out of ammo. ended up getting tked by a stray ppc, but it was pretty fun, especially getting a solo kill vs a raven 3l.

[Tim East]

stuh42l, on 21 December 2015 - 11:48 PM, said:

I just tried the arctic cheetah trial mech.

Is this thing for real? It felt like I just walked around blowing everything up. I got 600 dam in a trial mech? Really?

I've done it in the trial Kintaro. That thing was actually pretty sweet for an LRMisher.

[3xnihilo]

Tim East, on 22 December 2015 - 07:43 AM, said:

I've done it in the trial Kintaro. That thing was actually pretty sweet for an LRMisher.

The first time I ever broke 600 damage it was in a trial Kintaro

[loopala]

there was a time were the 1V with 50% range -50% duration and 50% cool down was a beast with a erll or as we jokingly called the IS ERLPL lct. the thing was a monster on maps with long line of sight. with cool down and range mods at 1200m you could do almost 9 points in about .5 seconds. every 1.5 seconds. yep striping armor from another zip code. now it can do all that at 850m so you are much easier to target but still a good ways off. throw a LPL and now (with mods) you are doing 11 points at 500m in .3 sec every 1.5 sec. scary an't it

Edited by loopala, 22 December 2015 - 09:53 AM.

[kanamisan]

Well I am trying out the one lpl build on a commando 1d, not quite as much range, but it does get it as a arm mount.
also comandos really are tanky, but it does not feel quite as agile as the locusts.

[Virlutris]

TheRAbbi, on 22 December 2015 - 05:55 AM, said:

Back to the LOLcust. I recall some time ago, a particularly good and well-known light pilot on the other team in a LCT-1V with a single ERLL. Now, the -1V gets RIDICULOUS laser quirks (50% cooldown, 50% duration, 15% range). Thing is, some other LOLcusts get at least DECENT ones, too. I'm wondering if anyone's tried that in a PB with the ECM aboard (lose a few points off the arms/head, and it fits with the XL 190). It's fairly nonstandard, and probably not a big earner for most (though he got like 600-ish damage and a few kills on Tourmaline in his -1V). Just wondering.

Warning, whiteboard geekery commencing:

PB's in a weird place config-wise. The 2 MG hardpoints (sort of kidding) are negligible at best since the MG nerf (/picardfacepalm.gif). It's got 4 energy points, 2 in each if the STs, where we're normally stuffing ECM and DHS. Do I dare attempt stuffing DHS in the arms?

The arrangement always has me going back to the drawing board to build a better 'mech trap. My best 2 thus far are 3MPL and 2MPL+2ML in terms of productivity and how it "feels" in combat. The XL180 I used to pack in it without a second thought makes me nervous now because it feels so much slower post skill-nerf.

That said, you could pack an LL or ERLL along with the ECM. You can even stuff in an extra DHS, not that you'd need it, so long as you srtip armor from the arms and head and use an XL180.

The trouble is, the range and cooldown buffs can only do so much to make that build on the PB Cookie much more than trolly (dps calc is 2 per second in online tools). 3V suffers from the same problem, with range-quirks-only. Similar stories for the 1M and 3M, sadly (and I think 1LPL in the 1M is a good fit).

If it's not the 1V, they just can't produce much with 1 BlueLaser. It desperately needs the absurd cooldown and duration to work "well"

More experienced Locust pilots are welcome to spot-check my opinioneering, though.

Full disclosure: I ground my SDR-5V with nothing but an LPL and a monster enginge (no quirks then!) and had a great time. "Success" is defined differently in that scenario

[kanamisan]

ok I feel bad for giving up on the one lpl build on the comando 1d and switching to the cookie cutter twin srm2 with 2tons and two mpl's however, once I got the double heatsinks, this thing really turned into a beast, also, I did take some of the headarmor off and added it to my left arm, its amazing how much fricking damage it takes
heck, I ended the last match losing my left arm, still managed to kill a cent before I died (which I died via ramming a direwolf do to being out of ammo, thought it was at least worth a try to get even more damage, but it was a loss anyway) 360 damage exact and the second stocking of the day. that being said, Its amazing being in a fast mech that actually has range on its lasers. still need to get used to the commando but, If this keeps up, the spider and raven are next. (do have the raven 3l though)

[Virlutris]

@Kanamisan, have you tried that Commie with 2 ML and 2 SRM4 yet? XL225, 2 tons of ammo. Biggest reasonable blend of alpha, ammo endurance and speed available on a Commie.

The LCT-1M can almost do that, but has to sacrifice something. When I run the mixed build on it, I run it with 2ML a SRM2 and SRM4, and 2 tons of ammo. It looks odd on paper, but I think its fun. Plenty of "secured kills," lol. The Commie version is the real deal though.

Pro tip: remember, you've got to strip the head armor to make the most of many builds in the 20-something-ton bracket. Edit: looks like you've noticed this for your 1D build

Edited by Virlutris, 22 December 2015 - 01:24 PM.

[kanamisan]

Virlutris, on 22 December 2015 - 01:15 PM, said:

@Kanamisan, have you tried that Commie with 2 ML and 2 SRM4 yet? XL225, 2 tons of ammo. Biggest reasonable blend of alpha, ammo endurance and speed available on a Commie.

The LCT-1M can almost do that, but has to sacrifice something. When I run the mixed build on it, I run it with 2ML a SRM2 and SRM4, and 2 tons of ammo. It looks odd on paper, but I think its fun. Plenty of "secured kills," lol. The Commie version is the real deal though.

Pro tip: remember, you've got to strip the head armor to make the most of many builds in the 20-something-ton bracket. Edit: looks like you've noticed this for your 1D build

yep, especially with how small the mech is, the cockpit hitbox feels like it does not even exist. to be honest though, I perfer twin srm2's, slightly less alpha, but faster recycle time and both are synced up. anyway, I had a epic match on hpg shortly after the last match I mentioned, my team had three commandos including me, the other team had one traitor(1b I think) which I executed later on. (4 comandos in one match I feel is unheard of.) ether way, I managed to over the course of the match get 8 assists, one kill, one most damage, expended all 200 rounds, stopped a two mech cap attempt with only light support, then assisted a raven deal with a adder, fishing the last fight with no arms and only the torso srm's. sadly the other commandos on my team could not score as well, but its nice to see that many commandos in play, i also saw one guy play a panther a few times today as well as a good few spiders so its a good day for the lesser used chassis.

[Tim East]

kanamisan, on 22 December 2015 - 09:05 AM, said:

Well I am trying out the one lpl build on a commando 1d, not quite as much range, but it does get it as a arm mount.
also comandos really are tanky, but it does not feel quite as agile as the locusts.

1 LPL is not sufficient. I use 2 LPL on a slow COM TDK troll build, and hilarity ensues nearly every time.

[DarthHias]

Gotta try this, I can´t make my TDK work anymore...

[1Grimbane]

been having a lot of fun playing an in and out striker role with my death's knell.... most rarely used mech by me is now getting used quite a bit, and the locusts are pretty fun now. used to run nothing but timbers dires and atlas's, now commandos and locusts lol. right after patch i was clocking about 150 dmg per match now i'm averaging around 300 so getting better with them, however its way hard to control a commando going 167 kph, but fun

Edited by 1Grimbane, 23 December 2015 - 12:46 AM.

[kanamisan]

1Grimbane, on 23 December 2015 - 12:44 AM, said:

been having a lot of fun playing an in and out striker role with my death's knell.... most rarely used mech by me is now getting used quite a bit, and the locusts are pretty fun now. used to run nothing but timbers dires and atlas's, now commandos and locusts lol. right after patch i was clocking about 150 dmg per match now i'm averaging around 300 so getting better with them, however its way hard to control a commando going 167 kph, but fun

I still have to get speed tweek on my locust and I still need two more comandos to grind out as well, but the cbills are coming my way so its not that big of a deal to buy a few more.

Tim East, on 22 December 2015 - 04:26 PM, said:

1 LPL is not sufficient. I use 2 LPL on a slow COM TDK troll build, and hilarity ensues nearly every time.

Ya, I had one match with that build and I learned how bad that is, I got about 30 hits in at different ranges, only clocked in 190 damage for what felt like lots of work. In comparison, the twin medium pulse and twin srm2 build lets me score that much damage on a average solid game, while I can score way higher than that.

Also, I kinda want to know what kind of damage scale is suggested, If I go by the old notion that 5 damage per ton is solid while 10 is great, then the locust and commando are performing well above that for me (16-20+ damage per ton) but that being said, more of my games come in the 5-10 damage per ton range then higher. It just kinda feels weird all things considered.