Apologies ahead of time if this topic has already been beaten to death, I've seen a fair amount of general advice (wait until the 8.5 million you receive for the initial missions) but not much in the way of specifics.
About me: I played the board game fairly regularly in the early to mid 90's, especially in the TRO 3050 era. I loved Mechwarrior 2, especially the customization options. I installed this game last weekend and am still terrible at it, especially since I haven't played much in the way of FPS type games since Quake.
I played a bit with the Vulture/Mad Dog (I still think of Omnimechs by their TRO 3050 names almost exclusively) during the Tukayyid event last week with terrible, terrible results. I really liked the mech tabletop, especially since IIRC clan LRM's had no minimum range and were therefore pretty great all around weapons. I've also tried playing other weight classes to get a feel for how the mechs and their play styles differ. From what I've read the trial mechs tend to be quite suboptimal variants in order to get people to spend money (not complaining, I am happy to pay for a quality product).
I'm looking at the store and tempted to buy either the Nova or Mad Cat/Timber Wolf for ~$20. I really liked those mechs in the table top game and think having the variants that I used to play years ago at my disposal would be fun enough to justify spending ~$20 on one of them while I learn the game. I was thinking the Nova would be a better bet since it would be less of a target than the Mad Cat.
I am also unsure what the game does to balance Clan vs IS tech which is one of the reasons that I have tended to gravitate toward Clan mechs, along with the lie that is stuck in my head that if I buy an omnimech I would have unlimited customization. From the forums it seems that if you buy an Inner Sphere mech you will want to spend several million to upgrade it to 3050 tech levels, but I'm not clear on the details. Is there anything built in to the game to encourage people to play IS?
TLDR; I've been a big fan of the Battletech IP since the FASA days. I've only got about 10 hours in to this game and am horrible at it, but fond memories of Mechwarrior 2 and imagining how amazing it would be to have company level PvP fights in it made this game a must try. Is there any reason to play Inner Sphere as opposed to Clan strictly based on mech builds? And would experienced players recommend any of the low level ( ~$20) mechs available for sale on the basis of making the learning experience more fun?
TTLDR; Do the experienced players think that the entry level mechs for sale are more effective to the point that they would make learning the game more fun?
LocationAurora, Indiana, USA, North America, Earth, Sol, Milky Way
Posted 01 May 2015 - 08:23 PM
Clan v IS is a bit complicated.
Clans have raw stats in their favor, pretty much always. Longer range, higher damage, lower weight, fewer crits, etc. Plus the cXL is a game-changer.
That said, the IS has single-slug ACs to the Clan burst-fire ACs, IS lasers are typically cooler and with much shorter burn times, and IS mechs tend to be far more heavily quirked, at least for the moment, than anything the Clans can field.
Before I give any definitive advice, do you plan to play Community Warfare at some point, and if so, do you want to be Clan-only, IS-only, or a merc who switches sides?
Clan tech has been "balanced" in numerous ways.. So your Vulture is a bit gimped at first glance. The most important thing to note it's not zero minimum range. It's 90 meters to do anything worth firing, and 180 to do full damage.
Omnimechs in BT as well as MWO have great customization in terms of weapon (hardpoint) selection, but that's about it. They have fixed engine sizes and fixed equipment. By technicality BattleMechs would be entirely 'fixed' equipment by the same definition, the difference being that Clans simply have no reason to want to change the fixed equipment while the Battlemechs may change them based on need at incredible time and expense. In MWO however, Battlemechs can change everything except hardpoints, Omnimechs can change hardpoints but can't change structure/armor types or 'fixed' equipment.
For the most part, I actually prefer IS 'Mechs over Clan 'Mechs though I'm actually ashamed to admit it has nothing to do with fondness of the IS over the Clan. It's simply because when you take out the range superiority that Clan 'Mechs have, the IS 'Mechs blatantly kill **** a lot faster. Enemy Mad Cat? BLAM! Instant kill. Gotta love twin AC/20s. Was that a Dire Wolf? BLAM! Oops, dead. If you want something dead and you want it dead quick, you use an IS 'Mech.
I generally use ballistic IS 'Mechs to kill things dead. If I wanna have fun, I'll use non-ballistic IS 'Mechs or Clan 'Mechs. If I want to be lazy, I'll use lots of LRMs for either side. And if I want a challenge, I'll use a laser boat or a Clan or IS (with std engine) light 'Mech.
This was before Quirks.
After quirks, this thing tanks better, it hits faster and harder, and quite frankly I got bored of winning with it. And that's just an XL engine Hunchback with an LBX-10, 3 SPL, 2 MGs and a pair of brass bullocks.
IS Ballistics on "one of the crappiest 'Mechs to ever hit MWO."
64.8 kph of walking death.
A Trebuchet against Clan and IS 'Mechs. External chase cam (by a Commando 2-D)
There are two aspects to "upgrading" your mech beyond the standard.
Firstly its the hardware. I assume you are familiar from TT.
Secondly, its the software or mech skill tree, which is unique to MWO. This skill tree actually improves mech performance. This improvement cannot be "felt" from trial mechs, but only by buying THREE variants of a chassis and leveling them up through playing and gaining "experience" points.
What this means is that instead of paying $20 for a timberwolf, I would rather pay $55 for 3 timberwolfs so that you are able to level up the mech skill tree in order to achieve the highest tier performance.
Paying $20 would give you a tricked out Timberwolf, but not the ability to move up the skill tree.
Do read out about other associated topics regarding.
1) Modules (Further improves mech performance, spend in-game currency)
2) Cost of IS mechs (The cost of tricking out an IS mech works out to being almost the same as an out-of-box clan mech cost)
To mention it... 20 dollars wouldn't 'trick out' your Timber Wolf. It'd just get you a Timber Wolf (as opposed to working towards one through a cbill grind).
I personally recommend mediums as typically they are lower in cost (almost universally) and easier to manage. Clan 'Mechs have the early hit in cost because DHS and armor/structure mods are already on most of them. IS Mechs need to upgrade to those, and ultimately it comes to roughly the same cost (though IS 'Mechs can actually be a tad more expensive in the long run once you start engine swapping).
Mediums can reach reasonable speeds, hit hard enough, and generally don't need XL engines, allowing them to survive more than the typical 'Mechs. Most all IS Heavies practically need XL engines, and similar is true of IS Lights. Otherwise 'issues' tend to arise for ya.
If going Clan, the Stormcrow is the "pinnacle of prowess," or basically "one of the three best mechs in the game." Unfortunately with that, you'll learn a number of bad habits for certain.
Other vids of merit.
Spoiler
<--Longish, skip to 6 minutes for the part I want you to see.
The following are at release of the first Clan 'mechs. One on one matches.
Atlas versus Dire Wolf.
Regarding Clan vs IS XL engines, does it mirror tabletop where 3 engine hits kills a mech and IS XL engines have 3 slots in the left and right torso but Clan only has 2?
From the posts it seems that some IS weaponry has comparative advantages to clan (quicker cooldown,etc) while in tabletop Clan tech was 100% better across the board. Am I understanding that part of the game correctly? And regarding the 'fixed' equipment topic, yes IS mechs could only change their layout at great time and expense. However, I thought the lore regarding omnimechs was that they were insanely easy to reconfigure at a moment's notice. I vaguely remember from TRO 3050 some omnimech which was weird because it had a flamer hard mounted in the base configuration. I realize that level of customization isn't really possible in an MMO but IIRC most of the mechs in the TRO's were garbage (100 ton IS mech Kraken from TRO 3055) and the real fun was in designing mechs to meet a total tonnage and crushing your friends in custom matches.
Regarding the skill tree, it seemed like a major advantage of paying cash for a mech was that they seemed to come with 3 variants. While I would happily pay $20 for the opportunity to eventually have a maxxed out Omnimech, $55 gives me a bit of a pause (I was one of the suckers that paid full price for Beyond Earth a few months ago and am in a once bitten twice shy kind of mood).
I had written a good amount more but my browser apparently hates this site and I had to restart so I'll keep this relatively short. Thanks again for the quick replies, now I am off to watch the video links you guys posted
Edit: From tabletop I understand that Omnimechs cannot change armor, engine, slots devoted to Ferro Fibrous armor/Endo steel. My foggy memory has it that everything else was fair game, I have some vague memory of a Way of the Clans book depicting Aiden Pryde adding/removing jump jets or something to his Thor/Summoner overnight before a big battle.
Regarding Clan vs IS XL engines, does it mirror tabletop where 3 engine hits kills a mech and IS XL engines have 3 slots in the left and right torso but Clan only has 2?
Yeah, so clan mechs with XLs can survive losing one side torso, but not both.
Quote
From the posts it seems that some IS weaponry has comparative advantages to clan (quicker cooldown,etc) while in tabletop Clan tech was 100% better across the board. Am I understanding that part of the game correctly? And regarding the 'fixed' equipment topic, yes IS mechs could only change their layout at great time and expense. However, I thought the lore regarding omnimechs was that they were insanely easy to reconfigure at a moment's notice. I vaguely remember from TRO 3050 some omnimech which was weird because it had a flamer hard mounted in the base configuration. I realize that level of customization isn't really possible in an MMO but IIRC most of the mechs in the TRO's were garbage (100 ton IS mech Kraken from TRO 3055) and the real fun was in designing mechs to meet a total tonnage and crushing your friends in custom matches.
You can check our smurfy's site to see the base weapon stats used by MWO, and remember that quirks can further modify those stats, with IS mechs having quirks with larger percent modifiers.
The thing is we have the Mechlab that allows for almost full customization (with some differences like Hardpoints, but also way more engine options and how engine rating impacts mech agility) and an instant time frame to drop into matches once a mech's loadout is setup.
Now if we could have in the future a campaign style format, then the devs could utilize more from the rules and lore.
Quote
Regarding the skill tree, it seemed like a major advantage of paying cash for a mech was that they seemed to come with 3 variants. While I would happily pay $20 for the opportunity to eventually have a maxxed out Omnimech, $55 gives me a bit of a pause (I was one of the suckers that paid full price for Beyond Earth a few months ago and am in a once bitten twice shy kind of mood).
I had written a good amount more but my browser apparently hates this site and I had to restart so I'll keep this relatively short. Thanks again for the quick replies, now I am off to watch the video links you guys posted
So with the variants needed, its more pay to reduce the grind, since you can play with what's available with trials and the small Cadet Bonus and eventually earn enough C-Bills to buy mechs you can customize. I know its not ideal, but from what I read about other games of this sort, it is an okay start at least.
I started with the COM-1B before the Cadet bonus and Champion mechs, and now I happen to own 55 mechbays, each filled with mechs I can drop in at will.
But, I can relate to any reluctance in making a purchase for a new player. This game is still rough around the edges, but it is enough fun with what it has right now (at least for me). So it's gonna be up to you!
Also, with how the Skills or Mech Tree Efficiencies currently work, they do give big bonuses once you reach Elite status, since they double at that point, and can make a big difference with how mechs feel such as with Assaults.
It seems that you really love the Clan mechs. They might not beat IS across the board in this game, but they're still very good. You seem set on Clans, and I fully endorse your decision. I'll try to give you the information you need so you don't make a regrettable purchase:
IS chassis may be cheaper, and can be played with in their stock configuration or without a lot of upgrades, but a lot of the more effective Inner Sphere builds require a significant amount of tweaking/upgrades such as new engines, which cost as much if not more than the base mech, as well as double heatsinks, endo steel, and/or ferro-fibrous armor. All of these expenses (chassis+XL engine+upgrades) add up to the same ballpark as a clan mech's store price. In short, plan on IS mechs not being where you want them stock, and plan on spending a lot of c-bills getting them where you want.
Clan mechs, in my opinion, are bit less of a hassle to set up generally. They come with an XL engines, structure, armor, and heatsink upgrades already installed and locked. Yes, it takes some decision away from how you want to build your mech, but I can also see that as making it less daunting to configure your mech (i.e. there's no "I made this build using an XL-350 engine and I hate it, welp. That's 5 million c-bills down the drain!") Even with Smurfy, sometimes what looks good on paper isn't viable.
Omnipoints: Yes, you can switch out omnipoints between variants. For instance, you buy your Mad Cat and it has 1 ballistic point on the right arm. You can buy the right arm of another Mad Cat variant with 2 energy hard points by itself separately and attach it to your current Mad Cat. Now your mech has 2 energy hardpoints on the right arm. The only part that is not interchangeable is the Center Torso, so pay attention to those hardpoints when thinking about which chassis to purchase.
Price: Imo, it's not worth using MC to buy a regular mech. I guess it's also relative to people's income and time they want to spend earning in game currency, so I won't say someone is wrong for doing so.
The 2nd fastest way to get mechs besides buying them is to invest in a good hero mech (I like the Firestarter Ember variant, but it's subjective as to what's a good hero mech.) AND buy premium time (grants 50% c-bill bonus) This way, you're earning an 80% bonus per game. This is much more price efficient for people with the time to grind c-bills, but again if you don't have that kind of time, but you do have the money, I won't argue with flat buying mechs.
Even with the cadet bonus (which gives you a boat load of money for the first 25 games.) The costs in this game can be scary for new players. If you don't get the right mech, then what? Should I buy a mech for 15 or 20 dollars? Is that just $20 gone on a game I'm only going to play a few times? Etc. etc. I'd say play until you decide if you want to keep playing or not before spending real money, and wait for the payout from the cadet bonuses. If you just use trial mechs for those first 25 games, you'll have a good hunk of c-bills to get a mech with in game currency. Also, joining a good Unit can really change the game experience.
timber costs 15 mil c-bills, cadet bonus it's 8 + you can get free day of premium time (click download client on the site and it will activate), you can farm timber for free in a few days... playing trial mechs sucks though, especially clan trials are bad
but to elite and master it you will need to buy 2 other timbers later
also stormcrow can do everything which nova can (and more, it also has plenty of missile hardpoints) but better. well, except jumping
(Done adding to the post here. Sorry to edit so many times).
Deerock, on 01 May 2015 - 09:30 PM, said:
Regarding Clan vs IS XL engines, does it mirror tabletop where 3 engine hits kills a mech and IS XL engines have 3 slots in the left and right torso but Clan only has 2?
Yes. Although engines have 15 health instead and currently the health has no function. (Was originally for repair and rearm). This does, however, mean that a Clan XL can survive losing one side torso. IS XL engines cannot.
Quote
From the posts it seems that some IS weaponry has comparative advantages to clan (quicker cooldown,etc) while in tabletop Clan tech was 100% better across the board. Am I understanding that part of the game correctly?
In tabletop, each turn is a summary of a 10 second period. Clan tech had superior range, superior overall summarized damage, generally lighter equipment, and minor technological advances from the Star League era. (In comparison, over 80% of the Inner Sphere's 'Mechs are recycled time and time again, fixed up and reused and are centuries old, with factories across the entire IS producing an average of less than 150 BattleMechs per year and the attrition rate of those 'Mechs being about the same. Entire campaigns are done to wipe out specific technologies that are exclusive or mostly used by any specific faction.)
That said, in such summaries there are AC/20s that pump out up to 100 rounds (Victor's Pontiac 100) in a single turn. And there are AC/20s that pump out 4 rounds (Chemjet Gun, 185mm). There are 44 truly unique standard inner sphere medium lasers, over 60 total, with beam colors ranging from pink to dark blue, with beam times ranging from 0.1 seconds to 2 seconds long, short of the long beam lasers many of them usually need to fire between 3 and 9 times. Only the medium laser known as the Rassal Blue Beam by Arcturus Arms could deliver the entire 5 damage in a single firing of a 0.1 second beam.. It also lore-wise caused EM Interference to the 'Mech using it, generated a total of 4 heat in a hot spike known to blow out circuits (rather than a total of 3 heat gradually), and needed half a second to charge before it could fire and "a minimum of 8 seconds before it could be safely fired again."
As you can imagine with so many variants with so many variations... it'd be really hard to keep track of it all. So Tabletop summarizes with "generic classes" of weapon. The result? Massive pinpoint, front-loaded damage (PP FLD) with dice rolls to determine where. Otherwise in the Victor's case... you'd have 20 damage / 100 shots = 0.2 damage per hit, with 100 rolls to determine hits and locations of damage. Bit of a pain, isn't it?
As such, Clan weapons are on the rules very overpowered where in the books it wasn't quite as insane. Sure, definitely better but it wasn't as clear cut.
More on the subject:
Spoiler
Remember that these are written in 1987 in a BattleTechnology magazine. Note that while the magazine has been made non-canon in 2010 by Catalyst Games due to the blatant over-stamping of Macross and other 'improperly licensed' designs all over its pages and conflicts with newer generation lore, the material is written primarily by by the first Battletech novelist William H. Keith, with contributions and edits by "little more than half a dozen" of those game developers that conjured up the 1st generation Battledroids and 2nd generation Battletech (the legally required renaming since Lucas held the rights to the word 'Droid') rules.
As such I hold them with much high esteem for their attempts at simulating Real Robot genre with concepts based in hard science. Much higher than I would hold changes by "WizKidz" edits (because c'mon, WizKidz thinks 'this' is realistic) or Catalyst.
Ranges:
PPCs and missiles.
ACs. Note this is very early on, 1987. Currently ACs range from 25mm to 203mm.
A follow up message notes an error in the original posting about lasers. It even goes on to make corrections (as evidently they learned some new facts about real lasers). I didn't screen cap the entire thing, but this was an interesting comparison.
Note that no standard laser fires more than 9 times in 10 seconds, in fact as far as I've seen the cap is almost universally 7 times. A pulse laser can fire up to 30 times. Ultimately what gives pulse lasers more damage and heat output is their faster firing rate at the risk of spreading more. But that's BT's lore. MWO treats it all differently.
------
Now to MWO.
The actual weapon cooldowns (recharge, reload) are universally the same for the base weapon stats. A medium laser or ER ML recharges in 3 seconds. Though specific mechs have better cooldowns than others. So for such and such a 'Mech, it has an improved cooldown rate for this kind of weapon to make up for some other issue it evidently has (size of the 'Mech, shape of the hitbox, ease of dying, etc). For example the Battlemaster 1G's medium lasers are quirked to have identical range of ER ML with only 0.75 second beam times (instead of 1 second normal ML beam times or 1.15 second ER ML beam times). Or depending on how you assemble your Adder, you could get craziness like 15% faster acceleration, or missiles that are 6% faster than normal.
In general, the IS 'Mechs get better quirks. But even without quirks being in the picture, Clans have their weapons with more DPS-oriented mechanics while the IS have their weapons with more 'pop and shoot' or burst damage mechanics. The idea -- though practice is often different from intent -- is that the IS would have to use military tactics and relentless experience in real warfare where 'fair' does not exist to squash the Clans. Meanwhile the Clans would use their quests for personal glory, aggression, etc. to either fight at blitzkrieg or otherwise be less cover oriented.
And even should the Clans take advantage of their 'unfair long range', it's a lot harder to focus the damage with DPS mechanics. Good news is that long beam times or multi-shot ACs is at longer range, even if you missed partly you can fix your aim...simulating the Clan's advantage in having an easier time scoring hits than IS 'Mechs.
On paper, Clans are superior in every way, especially when you place the MWO Clan weaponry in 10 second intervals. Its just exasperating how much they outclass the IS at first glance. But in practice, the IS has a huge PP-FLD advantage while the Clans spread damage much like that BattleTech Lore Victor's AC/20.
IS: AC/5. Bang. 5 damage. Reload. Reload finished. Ready.
Clan: UAC/5. Pow-pow-pow. 1.66667, 1.66667, 1.66667. Reload. Ultra mode! Pow-pow-pow (while the main chambers are reloading). 1.66667, 1.66667, 1.66667. Reload finished. Ready. (10 damage in the same amount of time, but how spread? How focused? Gotta use your skill to make it work.)
Ultimately the Clans become more skill oriented as a result.
Quote
And regarding the 'fixed' equipment topic, yes IS mechs could only change their layout at great time and expense. However, I thought the lore regarding omnimechs was that they were insanely easy to reconfigure at a moment's notice.
I vaguely remember from TRO 3050 some omnimech which was weird because it had a flamer hard mounted in the base configuration.
Heatsinks (those not fixed such as the MASC on the Firemoth or the jumpjets on the Summoner which could not be removed) can be added and removed with ease. (Changing the MASC on the Firemoth or the Jumpjets on the Summoner can be done per normal great time and expense akin to BattleMechs)
Weapons swapped out with ease (assuming it wasn't fixed like the Adder's fixed Flamer)
The 'weird fixed equipment' is both very normal and very canon for many Omnimechs. Anything that is universal for all canon Omnimech Configs is generally assumed to be 'fixed'.
Quote
Regarding the skill tree, it seemed like a major advantage of paying cash for a mech was that they seemed to come with 3 variants. While I would happily pay $20 for the opportunity to eventually have a maxxed out Omnimech, $55 gives me a bit of a pause (I was one of the suckers that paid full price for Beyond Earth a few months ago and am in a once bitten twice shy kind of mood).
Anything "A la Carte" should give you pause. There's a super premium if you wanted just one chassis. Where snagging two chassis cuts the price down, and going to 4 chassis brings the price down to 30 dollars a 'Mech. Honestly there is still value even after the preorder is long gone but I'm not sure if spending cash is such a great idea. At least not at the start.
Quote
Edit: From tabletop I understand that Omnimechs cannot change armor, engine, slots devoted to Ferro Fibrous armor/Endo steel. My foggy memory has it that everything else was fair game, I have some vague memory of a Way of the Clans book depicting Aiden Pryde adding/removing jump jets or something to his Thor/Summoner overnight before a big battle.
Are you certain that wasn't a Summoner II-C? One of the greatest merits of the second generation Summoner was that its jumpjets were Omni-fitted (meaning swappable) and the use of endo steel structure.
"The Thor II shares some similarities to its predecessor, sharing the same size XL Fusion Engine, and physical appearance. What differs from the older design is its Pod Capacity, the Thor II has a 30.5 ton capacity over the older model's 22.5. This increase of capacity comes from the reshuffling of the 'Mech's internal components and dropping the original's permanently mounted Jump Jets from the design. The Thor II's armor protection is slightly greater than the original, with half a ton more."
I would recommend starting with Stormcrows. They have the speed (107 once you get speed tweek), and they have the slots to try a lot of combinations. Also right from the start the Stormcrow Prime is a good mech without having to change anything (2 ER Large Laser for long range and 3 ER Med Laser for close range). I have 3 Stormcrows and I drive them the most when I am just wanting to do some killing. Right now my loadouts are:
Stormcrow Prime (5 Med Pulse Lasers, Mark 2 Targeting Computer, Tons of Heat Sinks)
Stormcrow C (5 Streak SRM6, BAP, ER Med Laser, 8 Tons of ammo)
Stormcrow D (Large Pulse Laser, Ultra AC/10 3 tons of ammo, 2 ER Med Laser, Mk 1 Targeting Computer)
Each Stormcrow does tons of damage and can even take one on one mechs like the Dire Wolf).
this has been said before, but just to condense it down,
Clan vs IS,
Clans have longer range, lighter weapons and equipment, smaller (take up less crit space) weapons and equipment, and thanks to the omnipod system can swop hardpoints between varients, they also have the more durable Clan XL engine.
Clans also have some disadvantages, most of their weapons take longer to fully discharge (longer burn time on lasers, burst fire ACs, stream fire LRMs) than the IS equivalent, Clan weapons usualy generate more heat, Clan Mechs have fixed structure type, armor type, engine, and in many cases other equipment (Jumpjets, the Adder has a fixed Flamer, many Mechs have fixed heatsinks ect).
for the IS, weapons are generally cooler but shorter range, have shorter discharge time (LRMs are launched all at the same time rather than in a stream, ACs fire a single shot and lasers have shorter burn time), no fixed equipment (you can change the engine, the structure type, the armor type, the heatsink type) but you are stuck with the Mechs stock hardpoints and are likely to have to spend millions to upgrade the Mech (most will at least want Double Heatsinks at a cost of 1.5 million cbills, you may also want to upgrade the engine, structure and armor to the point where in the case of a light Mech you can be looking at 4 times its purchase price to get it working optimally)
Again, I am incredibly overwhelmed and thankful for the volume and speed of replies. I picked up the anniversary boxed set for the table top game a few years ago and tried to get some Eurogamer friends into it with zero success, it is amazing to find out that there is still such a passionate community.
Unfortunately it is 3 am local time and I need to call it a night without acknowledging all the posts in the thread. I've read them all and they are amazing, please keep posting; I just won't be able to thank you all for a day or so.
That being said... Koniving... holy cow. You are a guru.
Stormcrows and Timberwolves are arguably two of the best mechs out there currently. If you take one, make sure you stay with your team, because you will get focused on.
You said you dropped in the Tukayyid (sp?) event and did poorly. Do not take that experience as typical. That was a CW event and in those games there are a lot of experienced players running fully optimized builds. You will do better once you get some mechs mastered.
And yes Koniving is a great teacher and very knowledgeable.
The best time to buy anything is at the beginning of a preorder such as the recently revealed Resistance II pack. That's because there are lots of monthly extras for each month you bought in early. In fact, you can buy the lowest tier, snag all the goodies and at least a set of 3 variants of a light mech, and upgrade that package as funds allow. I don't think it's worth it if you don't like the mechs of course. It's also hard to know how well they will perform without some experience playing this game. Since you are new, you don't yet know what kinds of mechs you enjoy playing or what roles you enjoy so buying something with real money is a hard sell. I wouldn't recommend anyone spending money unless they feel they are making an informed decision. Just a good general rule of thumb in life. It's a free to play game, so play through your cadet bonus, make a new account and play through it again if you want, until you get to a comfortable spot. Tell us what you liked and what you didn't and we'll help you choose a mech and loadout we think you'll like.
@TheCaptainJZ - Don't forget the important part "preorder". There will be a long wait for those shiny new mechs to arrive in your mechbay.
To the OP - I think I have found this game very much easier to cope with (in some ways) as I have practically no knowledge of the table-top game and, therefore, have had no hangover caused by "legacy" understanding. Clan better than IS...really? Not noticeably except in some specific areas explained, most excellently, by Koniving above. However, like you, I am attracted to the Clan mechs mostly because I like my big, stompy-robots NOT to look like people! So, my first investment after collecting my cadet bonus was the Stormcrow (any experience gathered on the trial version passes over to your chassis if you buy the same model - instant tier 1 skills!). Once I had collected and mastered that, I sold one of the chassis (after removing the omnipods) and put the money towards the Novas; rinse and repeat with MadCats.
In the meantime I did invest in a couple of IS Mastery Packs - I had some disposable cash and as a hobby this is a hell of a lot cheaper than golf! - and some premium time, and used those to grind out the C-bills to fund my Clan addiction. During that process I found I quite like some IS mechs and am now the proud owner of elited Ravens, Cicadas, Hunchbacks and Thunderbolts (Cicada is currently my favourite).
This is a free to play game (there is hardly ANY pay to win aspect to it at all) all you pay for, in my opinion, is speeding up the acquisition of new toys to play with and there is no need to spend a penny on it if you don't want to.
Bear in mind though; how quickly you get good at MWO depends on you, and only you. Do you learn from your mistakes? Do you watch better players and learn from them? Do you study the maps and chassis to learn their strengths/weaknesses. But most of all do you enjoy playing?
I have been playing for coming up to two months now and, whilst I am no stat-padder some statistic can be a reasonable measure: I have seen my kill:death ratio go from 0.4 to 0.6 and my average experience per battle is now over 1,000 an rising (I am measuring ONLY against myself, no one else so have no real idea, or even care, if that is good, the important thing for me is that it is better!)
TL&DR - Novas, Stormcrows are great, I suck in MadCats (Timberwolf) - GO CLAN!
Executive Summary:
Get a Stormcrow Prime first and then as quickly as possible a Radar Deprivation module.
Yes this is about it for the aspiring Clan pilot.
You can afford one, just, out of cadet bonus 25 matches and it will set you up well.
Timber would need grinding, then more grinding to buy more. If buying with cash then use the Alacarte for Timbers.
I will recommend to buy first medium IS mech. They have much easy to play compared clan mecs. When you have some practice then buy clan mech - Stormcrow. Buy some Shadowhawk, Hunchback or LRM Trebuсhet. Try different range weaponry, med and short. Learn to use R key first. It's vital for you and group.
That being said... Koniving... holy cow. You are a guru.
Thanks.
I wasn't always, I started to get really into it "beyond Mechwarrior games" near the end of the first year of MWO when I picked up Megamek and tried out the now defunct but in my opinion better-balanced and more lore-friendly Mechwarrior Tactics (even if the mechs...for some reason... mixed the Japanese BT and Western BT styles..)
Western BT. Hunchback 4G.
Japanese BT. Hunchback 4G.
Combines into..."What the [beep] is THAT!? A transformer?"
Yeah.
Anyway,
Spoiler
between talking with Lordred (responsible for recordings of me from the Commando as well as the thousand+ images on google of my 'Mechs), playing megamek, and watching animes that actually influenced BT's development (earlier Gundam series especially the Universal Century timeline/universe as well as 08th MS Team, Patlabor, Ghost in the Shell [the 80's mangas as the shows didn't exist yet; you'll notice a huge influence on BT infantry weapons there as well as prosthesis] as well as a few other things....wow that's a long list.. anyway I started learning that BT was extremely well developed and rich. Rather than "just 'Mechs" with some optional vehicles thrown in, it dabbles into everything and evidently has a lot of misconceptions.
(Obvious Patlabor Influences.)
Spoiler
Noa Izumi, PatLabor. Note uniform and helm.
PatLabor hangar design -- note this is from the second movie much later, the design is mostly identical to the 1980s TV series however (beyond it being winter instead of summer). Just imagine the Catwalk isn't there and make it summer.
For example it's frequently assumed there is no AI. Well there is a specific case of AI where it goes haywire and it's a thing that remote controls many 'Mechs, but they also had it on a smaller, simpler scale. I suppose the big thing is that they weren't big on genuine AI, but they still had automated machines. If the factories weren't automated, quite simply 'Mechs would be extinct. But beyond that, there's entries like this hidden about.
(1989.)
Another common misconception is there are no aliens. A certain K-named bird species being the highly contested "but" with an "unwanted" counter. However, the reality is there are evidently thousands of alien species. But nothing smart enough or capable of stealing your Battlemech and trying to kill you with it. Two examples.
Spoiler
You could easily make a Mass Effect out of the BT universe, include a single planet and still have more content than ever placed in the first Mass Effect game, and you could do all that without putting in a single BattleMech. It's kinda scary.
Also -- this one I learned a month or two ago. Ready for this? First some buildup. When BF3 was being developed, there was a big debate on reddit about what was wrong with Call of Duty. A representative of the company asked "What was wrong with our game" (paraphrased) which the argument was something to the effect of why CoD wasn't cool anymore, to which the reply was "Lack of Dinosaurs." Ever since, Dinosaurs (specifically a green T-rex) have been making cameo appearances in Battlefield games. But, BattleTech had them beat since 1989. BT features dinosaurs!
Spoiler
What really makes Battletech (Megamek) fun to play is the use of civie tech. Police for example. Though the lack of variety in security mechs has brought me to make my own, each with deliberate flaws as are the original BT designs. The results are, actually, very interesting.
Spoiler
Because of the "Clan Elemental" reference I included this for a size comparison.
Imagine your police officers looking like that.
TL;DR:
Anyway... Totally got side tracked. I was originally just gonna say that while I haven't got recent footage because I've had a headset die and after that MSI Afterburner stopped recording things (it just won't), Lordred apparently has.
So quirks and all, Battlemaster/Orion. (Also the Battlemaster 1G's lasers get close to Clan ER ML, but not quite there. Discussion is in the video.
Quirks and all, Orion, Timber Wolf, Protector (Orion hero), some others.
0
