20 replies to this topic

[Black Crimson]

Hey all. I've not played this game since a good while.
Played only little in the past, but it seems to growing bigger and better.

Is there a way to inspect other players? For example, so that people can look at my mechs and tell me how bad they are.

Seems I got a King Crab and another Atlas while I was gone. Sweet.
What should I do with them, they good as they are? That King Crab goes out of ammo fast.
I generally don't play the stuff everyone recommends, mostly because I'm unaware of what the flavour of the month are and am also bancrupt most of the time.

Any reasonable ways someone who never really got into the thick of it can rack up kills?
Mechs I like are my Catapult and my Atlas. I also got Hunchbacks, A jenner, a Dragon Slayer and

Played some warm up matches. That King Crab hurts. And I liked the Storm Crow.
I got kills and didn't die miserably, so that's an improvement.
So many new mechs!

[Koniving]

Welcome back.

"Is there a way to let people look at my mechs?"
Build them on Smurfy
Here's an example build.

You can check out mechs on your profile in the forums, but sadly no one else can. I hate that because I like the idea of showing off my mechs.


KingCrab and Atlas were rewards, there should be a Centurion in there too.

I haven't decided what to do with the Atlas. I use it for LRMs for now.
The King Crab makes lots of sense in tabletop, and lore... but PGI has it spending each 'magazine' in a single shot due to PGI mistaking how ammo count was to be interpreted. (It's common.)
That said, you'll need to find ways to inflate its ammo supply.

"Any reasonable way someone can rack up kills?"
Many ways.
Go for legs or side torsos. You're bound to get a kill sooner or later. Legs break easily and slow things down. You'll find everything easier to kill when it's limping.

Jenner, channel the armor forward especially on the CT and you'll find it living longer. It's actually okay to bring the rear armor down to 2.

Good luck.

[SnagaDance]

That King Crab can easily be adapted. Upgrade the Large Laser to an ERLL for some distance weaponry. Dump the Lrm + its ammo and spend the tonnage on AC20 ammo instead. Now you'll be able to pump out AC20 shots without fear of limited ammo (only ran out of ammo once in a game but that was after making 5 kills with it) and you'll still have a back-up weapon that can also be used at range. Hug terrain, stay in cover, and get close to your enemy. Profit!!

[Rogue Jedi]

Black Crimson, on 03 March 2015 - 07:11 PM, said:

Hey all. I've not played this game since a good while.
Played only little in the past, but it seems to growing bigger and better.

1) Is there a way to inspect other players? For example, so that people can look at my mechs and tell me how bad they are.

Seems I got a King Crab and another Atlas while I was gone. Sweet.
What should I do with them, they good as they are?
2) That King Crab goes out of ammo fast.
3) I generally don't play the stuff everyone recommends, mostly because I'm unaware of what the flavour of the month are and am also bancrupt most of the time.

4) Any reasonable ways someone who never really got into the thick of it can rack up kills?
Mechs I like are my Catapult and my Atlas. I also got Hunchbacks, A jenner, a Dragon Slayer and

Played some warm up matches. That King Crab hurts. And I liked the Storm Crow.
I got kills and didn't die miserably, so that's an improvement.
So many new mechs!

while Koniving offered some great advise (as always) here are some alternatives

1) in the Mechlab click the Mech Details button then press "print screen" or "prt sc" on your keyboard, this will take a screenshot, it will be saved in your c:\users\your user name\saved games\mwo\screenshots folder, upload this to your choice of online file storage then post a link in this thread, we will then be able to offer some advice

2) upgrade the Crab to Double Heat Sinks (1.5 million cbills, recommended for most Mechs) this will remove 5 heatsinks and replace the in engine sinks to double strength, your Mech will run cooler and have an extra 5 tones for more ammo, switching the Fero Fibrus armor to Endo Steel will get you an extra 3 tones, potentially that is an extra 8 tones for ammo without changing the weapons at a cost of about 2.3 million cbills.

3) look up the Mech Quirks,
http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/
and rebuild your Mechs to take advantage of those, this can give your Mech a big power boost (depending on Mech naturally)

4) as for getting kills, as this is a team game providing a distraction or stripping armor can be just as important as getting the kills, however there are some things that work well at getting you kills, they are:
positioning, yes seriously getting into a good position where you can easily hit the enemy but they cannot easily hit you is a great advantage, unfortunately this will come with experience, learn the maps and workout where you are covered by terrain but can still shoot, but most importantly if the team leaves the area stay with your team, if you get separated the enemy Light Mechs will take great pleasure in dismantling Mech
pinpoint alpha strike designed to place heavy hits exactly where you want them, you target vulnerable components to to kill a Mech(e.g. put 2 Gauss Rifles on your King Crab), to do this you have to be a good shot and know the hitboxes of enemy Mechs.
or continuous fire builds, things like a 6xLRM5 CPLT A1, or quad AC5 Jagermech, the same with builds carrying multiple machine guns or other fast firing weapons, with those sorts of build (except Machine guns or AC2) you chainfire, the constant barrage will not cause much focused damage but will drastically increase your chances of firing the last shot which kills the Mech.

Edited by Rogue Jedi, 04 March 2015 - 01:57 PM.

[Black Crimson]

Played some more matches. Sometimes I'm not sure how I die so fast in an Assault. My Atlas died quickly from some mech , forgot the name sadly. Lots of ballistic. Those shake my screen so badly.
My King Crab seems to do well even default, and the Storm Crow, I was semi-successful with that.

[Koniving]

Black Crimson, on 04 March 2015 - 12:38 PM, said:

Played some more matches. Sometimes I'm not sure how I die so fast in an Assault. My Atlas died quickly from some mech , forgot the name sadly. Lots of ballistic. Those shake my screen so badly.

Atlas:
Standard or XL engine? You want Standard.
What is the armor allocation? What is the front/rear allocation of your armor?

[Fobhopper]

Black Crimson, on 03 March 2015 - 07:11 PM, said:

Hey all. I've not played this game since a good while.
Played only little in the past, but it seems to growing bigger and better.

Is there a way to inspect other players? For example, so that people can look at my mechs and tell me how bad they are.

Seems I got a King Crab and another Atlas while I was gone. Sweet.
What should I do with them, they good as they are? That King Crab goes out of ammo fast.
I generally don't play the stuff everyone recommends, mostly because I'm unaware of what the flavour of the month are and am also bancrupt most of the time.

Any reasonable ways someone who never really got into the thick of it can rack up kills?
Mechs I like are my Catapult and my Atlas. I also got Hunchbacks, A jenner, a Dragon Slayer and

Played some warm up matches. That King Crab hurts. And I liked the Storm Crow.
I got kills and didn't die miserably, so that's an improvement.
So many new mechs!

That king crab, slap 2 ac20's, an ams and maybe a medium or 2 light lasers and you have an amazing mech there. (I recommend putting in 7 tons of AC20 ammo in it). The amount of damage you can do is just silly. Or you can experiment and run 4 ac5's on it, thats pretty fun, but make sure you have a lot of ammo for it.

The atlas is kind of meh compared to others like the D-DC or BH. But a free mech is a free mech, put whatever you want in it.

[Black Crimson]

Okay, doing my mechs now.

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...fa77f2fd34ac04a <-- Atlas (Founder)

Screens seem to be quicker for this. Here you go.

Laser Hunchie HBK-4P
http://puu.sh/gmZLH/c703ddf837.jpg
http://puu.sh/gmZMZ/b8f4a47755.jpg

HBK-4SP
http://puu.sh/gmZNN/2bee771026.jpg
http://puu.sh/gmZOe/87c7bb9941.jpg

HBK-4G(F)
http://puu.sh/gmZP6/04b47d1ce4.jpg
http://puu.sh/gmZPD/d664e1ac08.jpg

CPLT-A1
http://puu.sh/gmZQ2/c631084b39.jpg
http://puu.sh/gmZQA/51a342ed6b.jpg

CPLT-C1(F)
http://puu.sh/gmZRI/5af234a992.jpg
http://puu.sh/gmZSg/3d92920d90.jpg

TDR-9S
http://puu.sh/gmZSL/4c95e8c6b9.jpg
http://puu.sh/gmZTi/7e835e2f35.jpg

VTR-DS
http://puu.sh/gmZTD/7fa9c42f5a.jpg
http://puu.sh/gmZUP/6fa7ca9550.jpg

JR7-D(F)
http://puu.sh/gmZVa/a401c8efac.jpg
http://puu.sh/gmZWN/c3841e9ce7.jpg

Going to expect facepalms at some of the stuff I did there.
I left out the Centurion, the Atlas and the King Crab, because I didn't modify them at all, they use their standard loadouts.

[luxebo]

Couple things to do: you must upgrade to DHS and endo. These are pretty important in order to maintain strong cooling and enough tonnage in the mech to load weapons. Watch out for leg armor too, some might leg. Also last thing is to look up the quirks in smurfy for all the mechs. Lotta good quirks (AC20 cooldown quirks en masse on the HBK, etc).

I assume CN9-A(C) as in 3xMPL 2xASRM4. It is good, but move one of the ammo slots from the leg with both ammo tons there into the other leg. If you mean CN9-AH then I suggest getting 1xAC20 3xSRM4 build.

Which AS7 did you leave stock? AS7-S? If that's the case I suggest getting 1xAC20 4xASRM4 2xML in CT build.

Kgc I assume the loyalty; you can use it in different ways. Play around with it in smurfy.

The AS7-D already looks fine, just have to find a crit slot for that AMS ammo laying in the arm. Atlas has been real tanky recently.

The HBK-4P looks great as well. No comments there. However the HBK-4SP needs a bit of adjustment. It's running a low slung build, though if it works for you then go for it. I prefer 5xML 2xASRM6 and a better engine, but it's up to you. The engine in my opinion saves it's torso twisting and gets away faster. The HBK-4G is good but I say bigger engine, a zombie ML on the head, DHS and you are set. Overall HBKs you will want to place 46-2 RT armor, as it will make that hunch plenty more durable.

The Catapults need some work. You can play either SRM, SSRM, or LRM, but need more leg armor, atermis, etc all the stuff that makes it good. The thing is that R&R was prevalent, but now it has stopped so no biggy with DHS/ES. Remember TAG and NARC will help tons, as NARC now practically neutralizes ECM problems when fired oftenly. One NARC the mech gets LRMed to near death. TAG is also as helpful, though requires direct line of sight. BAP and JJs are good purchases too.

The TDR-9S actually has a strong layout, as ER PPC was quirked on the TDR-9S. It is pretty much ok, except that for whatever reason you have lrm ammo in the head. Plus the MPL might want to be on the left side, allowing you to lose both arms no biggy.

The Victor needs some updating here and there. It's loadout is already decent stock, but you might want to move ammo, add more long range or short range (pick one way to head). It's a-ok in my opinion after a few adjustments. Once again use smurfy.

The Jenner needs some work. Firstly you need an XL on every light from now on since R&R is gone. Secondly, need more frontloaded armor. Afterwards, choose and pick whether you would like to add missiles, etc.

A good place for builds is metamechs and mechspecs. Similar in name, but the former is a more comp tier lists and builds, while the latter is more of a share build location. https://www.mechspecs.com/ http://metamechs.com/ Don't let metamechs be the only way out in builds etc, let it be a reference.

Good luck black crimson, o7 and I hope you enjoy the game.

Oh last last thing, CW allows IS mechs only on IS factions (i.e. my faction the Free Rasalhague Republic, and every faction named with a "House" like House Davion or House Liao). Therefore highly suggesting to join the IS side, though nothing is stopping you from going Clan. Clans are gonna be far more difficult though since you don't have an organized group of Clan tech/mechs. Good luck in CW and the game!

[Rogue Jedi]

you asked for optionions these are mine, just because this is how I wpuld play those Mechs does not mean it would work for you, so decide for yourself weather or not to take this advice.


fhr the HBK-4SP the Mech has quirks making the SRM6 much more effectave than usual, so I would strongly advise putting 2 SRM6 on it, also I persionly would not go smaller than a 250 enine on a HBK (the larger engines make a huge diferance to handeling)

for the HBK 4G I would recomend upgrading to Double Heat Sinks and using the weight savings to upgrade the engine to at least a 250, that way you will both run faster and run cooler.

with the CPLT A1 I would again recomend DHS and a bigger engine, the catapults have tiny side torsos wo are safe to use an XL engine in, my favorate engine for a catapult is an XL 300, unfortunately the XL300costs about 5 million cbills each

for the CPLT C1(f) I would again recomend upgrading to DHS, use the weight savings (due to not needing as many heatsinks) for ammo, also possibly swap one of the Medium Lasers for a TAG and concider a larger XL engine instead of the standard 260

for the JR7-D(f) I would recomend Double Heat Sinks, an XL engine as for Lights speed makes you far less vulnerable, 275 or larger and adding ether 2 SSRM2 (and also put on a BAP so you can hit ECM lights with the streeks) or 2 SRM4 (if you prefer hunting larger Mechs) in the misile hardpoints, also I suggest sticking with the same type of lasers rather than a mix of ML and MPL

[Black Crimson]

Yeah, the Centurion is the one you get If you're a founder, with the Angel Paintjob (Aswell as the Atlas and King Crab).

I upgraded my King Crab with double heat sinks, removed the LRM, added a second large laser.

Structure, I forgot how that works. If the lighter structure has a drawback or not, etc.
Gonna check out those links!

About the faction thing, if I join a faction like Steiner/House Liao/ETC, does it impact Public matches?
I am not in a Clan yet, since I play casually for now and don't yet feel worthy of joining a dedicated clan.
Since someone mentioned Clan Wars. Or does it add singleplayer missions on the planets (Doubt that).

Edited by Black Crimson, 05 March 2015 - 06:39 AM.

[SnagaDance]

Actually you get the Centurion for ever having bought MC before a certain date (could be that Founders automatically qualified because of Founders MC though). Faction does not impact public matches, only community warfare.

[Rogue Jedi]

Black Crimson, on 05 March 2015 - 06:38 AM, said:

Yeah, the Centurion is the one you get If you're a founder, with the Angel Paintjob (Aswell as the Atlas and King Crab).

I upgraded my King Crab with double heat sinks, removed the LRM, added a second large laser.

Structure, I forgot how that works. If the lighter structure has a drawback or not, etc.
Gonna check out those links!

About the faction thing, if I join a faction like Steiner/House Liao/ETC, does it impact Public matches?
I am not in a Clan yet, since I play casually for now and don't yet feel worthy of joining a dedicated clan.
Since someone mentioned Clan Wars. Or does it add singleplayer missions on the planets (Doubt that).

Endo Steel Structure saves you weight in exchange for taking up critical slots, other than that there is no advantage or disadvantage to using it, same with Fero Fibrus armor but Endo offers a better weight saving

for now joinig a faction is only relevent for Community Warfare, it affects your options for Mechs, an IS pilot can only take IS Mechs aand a Clan pilot can only use Clan Mechs, as you work for a faction you will earn loyalty points, get enough loyalty points and you can get promoted to a higher faction rank, most promotions come with extras, including Mechbays, cbills, GCP and MC, when you switch factions you can loose points for your old faction if you take action against them so if you move and are likely to want to return try to pick a faction where you are unikely to come into contact with your previous faction, or else you could need to regain a lot of points before you can keep progressing in the first faction on your return.
if you take a short term contract you will earn less loyalty points for a win, with higher loyalty points for longer contracts, if you take a perminant contract you will have to pay to break it, so I do not advise perminant contracts.

however it is possible in future faction choice may have more significance.

[Jody Von Jedi]

Caution on joining a faction. If you chose to leave before your contract is up, it will cost you C-bills. 50K per day for each day remaining on the contract.

If you play CW, only join a faction for no more than the 28 day contract. You do get more rewards for longer contracts, but if you ever want to leave, it's expensive. Before I joined a unit, I would only contract up to 2 weeks.

A permanent contract isn't really permanent, you can break them, but they are even more expensive to break.

[Black Crimson]

Community Warfare is not Clan Wars, or is that the same?
And why do some mechs have two names? The Clan Ones. Is it like special variants "Mad Cat" and "Timber Wolf" ?
Like how there's different Hunchbacks? Not really knowledgable with the battle-tech universe.
I got into it with Mechwarrior Online, actually, so I'm fresh meat.

[Alaskan Nobody]

Black Crimson, on 05 March 2015 - 01:43 PM, said:

Community Warfare is not Clan Wars, or is that the same?

Clan Wars would be the clans fighting eachother (which is going on some)

Community Warfare is giving the players some power over the map borders.

Clan Mechs have 2 names because they are invaders from outside "known" (for a given value of known) space
When they invaded the invadees (the great houses) did not know what they were called and so made their own names for them.

IE: the Timberwolf (clan name) is also known as the Mad Cat because it looked like a combination of the Marauder (MAD-) and Catapult (CPLT) mechs

Mad-Catapult.
Kinda

[Black Crimson]

So, I got myself the 3 Timber Wolves. And I die really fast in them and do really bad with them. I thought it's a really damn good mech.
So I'm a BAD pilot?
But I do really good in King Crab, or in my LBX Atlas. (Somehow do bad in the AC20 atlas with LRMs).
My Madcat loses its arms so fast and torso so fast. People just laser me once and it's all yellow.
But when I unload ALL MY GUNS on a LIGHT, he escapes easily. I don't get it.
Seems the only thing I can do well is facehug brawling.

[Rogue Jedi]

Black Crimson, on 22 March 2015 - 09:12 AM, said:

So, I got myself the 3 Timber Wolves. And I die really fast in them and do really bad with them. I thought it's a really damn good mech.
So I'm a BAD pilot?
But I do really good in King Crab, or in my LBX Atlas. (Somehow do bad in the AC20 atlas with LRMs).
My Madcat loses its arms so fast and torso so fast. People just laser me once and it's all yellow.
But when I unload ALL MY GUNS on a LIGHT, he escapes easily. I don't get it.
Seems the only thing I can do well is facehug brawling.

your problems with the Timber Wolf come from the fact that it is widely considered to be the best Mech in the game, that means it is the highest priority target, if someone sees a Timber Wolf the entire team is likely to target it, if 4+ Mechs are shooting at you then it does not matter how good you are, you will not last long.
This may sound silly or cowardly but try to hang back a bit, do not be on the front line but rather slightly (50-200m) behind it, so by the time someone sees you the enemy are already firing at someone else.
to improve survibility always keep moving and when you start to take damage twist the Mech to spread it out over the whole Mech, as well as heading for the nearest cover, and put something (like a building, mountain or enemy Mech) between you and whoever is firing at you

yellow means has takes some damage, it does not mean serious damage, so do not worry about yellow armor.

_{disclamer, I am not verry good with Assualt Mechs, hopefully someone else can offer better advise}
If you are doing well with LBX, SRM and ML (assuming your LBX atlas is the same build as above) I suggest a similar build on your AS7-S(L) (assuming that is the AC20 LRM Atlas) I would suggest something like this:
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...b80fdba2f966eb3
the LRM is for the early fighting at range, the MLs are more accurate than the SRMs so are better for targeting week spots but are mostly there as backup weapons for if you loose your AC/SRMs or run out of ammo.
the SRMs and AC20 give you a brutal close in punch but if you fire the MLs, AC20 and SRMs at the same time you will have heat trouble.

Light Mechs do not have much armor and cannot carry much firepower, to compensate for those disadvantages they are fast and hard to hit. best bet is to aim for the legs with your arm mounted weapons (with arm lock turned off), all you need to do is scare the Lights off, if you can hit their legs with lasers (speaking as a Light Mech pilot) that may be enough to convince them to look for an easier target. look for a wall, and back up to it so the Light cannot get behind you (if a Light can get behind an Atlas the Atlas is in serious trouble).
if you cannot deal with the Light ask for help, if you have a microphone press the caps lock and say something along the lines of "can someone help me with Jenner A" (assuming it is a Jenner which has the letter A above it in the HUD)

bear in mind your guns fire from all over your Mech, if the light is too close it is almost impossible to hit it with everything because the Light Mech is probably a lot narrower than yours, e.g. most lights can walk right up to a King Crab and stand directly in front of its center torso, if the King Crab lines up its crosshares and fires everything the weapons will all miss because the missiles and lasers are to high to hit it and the ballistics are so far out to the side that they shoot to both sides of the Light

[Black Crimson]

Is there a ingame chat or a chatroom that is MWO themed? It's a bit tedious to post all the time or to ask ingame, where most don't really read teamchat.

They should implement an in-game lobby into the MWO client, a bunch of chatrooms.

[Rogue Jedi]

look for teamspeak servers, most Units have one or there are several listed in here:
http://mwomercs.com/...then-look-here/

team speak is a VOIP client, google teamspeak to download it if you do not already have it installed just find a channel with a few people in and ask a few questions, most people should be willing to help