52 replies to this topic

[Capnflintlock]

Personally, I like having armor and firepower over speed. For example, my favorite medium mech is the hellspawn. Its got decent armor, and slots for beam and missle weaponary. I take off the jump jets, downgrade the engine, and maximize the armor and firepower.

My mechwarrior 4 load out for my hellspawn is as follows:
x1 LRM 15 / 1 ton of ammo
x1 SRM 6 / 2 tons of ammo
x1 Large Laser
x2 Medium Lasers
x2 heat sinks
Lams
13.5 tons of reflective Armor
Speed: 82 km/h

This package gives me fairly good striking power at all ranges, and a decent amount of armor to protect me. Its main weakness is of course, movement speed, and suseptibility to hard hitting ballisitic weapons such as AC20s. Additionally, with 2 heat sinks, the lasers will overheat you if you spam all 3 non stop, but just using the mediums and SRMS at close range can keep your heat level and deal quick damage.

So whats your guys favorite medium mechs, and how do you like to build them?

Edited by Capnflintlock, 23 May 2012 - 08:30 AM.

[Vulpesveritas]

I'll be looking at a Cicada with either a PPC and M/S Lasers, or an AC/10 and M/S lasers... double heatsinks, maybe jumpjets...
XL engine, probably ECM. Endo skeleton if I'm able to get it...
Gonna cost a ton but I'll be running that for... well I might as long as a decade and try other things here and there.

Edited by Vulpesveritas, 23 May 2012 - 08:28 AM.

[Arafinar]

soon....

[Emperor Cassius]

I like a good solid mech, Weapons and armor are a must because you never know when one of those pesky jumpy light mech will show up to rape your reactor exhaust.

[Raalic]

Cicada pretty much defines my play style with something close to the CDA-3C loadout. So for me? Weapons + Speed = Good.

[Monthar]

I like enough speed to be hard to hit, plenty of firepower for a good alpha strike without overheating of course and jump jets for the oh so fun of DFA.

[jparbiter]

The Centurion is already pretty damned perfect for me. I can contribute to LRM support fire, I have a big beat stick to protect LRM boats or just slap down small mechs, I pack enough armor to take a hit or five, and I am fast enough to keep up with most

[Aelos03]

I think i will drop JJ and add extra fire power and speed

[Valkyrie Vewas]

What would be something like the ryoken in the IS? Fast with lrms and good laser load out

[Sassori]

I'm probably going to take a hunchback and yank out the AC and put some mid to long range energy weapons in the energy hard points, boost the armor and speed as best I can and play harasser. I dislike slow 4/6 mediums. 5/8 is the slowest I want a medium mech to go. 6/9 be even better.

If I can't do it with the hunchback I'll take a Centurion and yank the AC-10 for a Gauss Rifle and strip out the LRM-10 for increased engine and ammo. Put those gauss rifle slugs where they do the most damage.

[Aethon]

Valkyrie Vewas, on 23 May 2012 - 08:35 AM, said:

What would be something like the ryoken in the IS? Fast with lrms and good laser load out

The Stormcrow is one of my faves...although I don't know of any variants that mount a pure LRM/Laser config.

That said...as far as IS missile/laserboat medium mechs go (in this time period), the Trebuchet mounts 2 LRM15's and 3 Medium Lasers in its traditional configuration...not all that fast, though. The Dervish is somewhat similar...2 LRM10's, 2 Medium Lasers, and it also carries a pair of SRM2's. Same speed as the Trebuchet, but it has jump capability.

I can't think of any others right off.

[Name54678]

I dont know if heatsinks are counted as armor or not. I prefer to max out armor then add additional heatsinks/double heatsinks as I prefer
energy based weapons. If one of those pesky jumpy light mechs show up behind me and I'm just standing there waiting on a cooldown I will get served. That being said, I do usually add an SRM of some type just to keep things balanced.

[Sassori]

It's really hard to find anything similar to the Ryoken because the Ryoken uses clan tech which allows for truly insane builds. The Ryoken was one of my all time favorite clan mechs because it was so powerful for how small it was due to the nature of Clan ER Lasers.

IS ER Lasers have the range, have the heat, but not the damage of clan ER lasers so that's a net loss right there.

Endo Steel and Ferro Fibrous take up 14 crits each instead of 7. XL Engine takes up 3 crits in each torso instead of 2. Double Heat Sinks take up 3 crits per instead of 2.

All this adds up to a lot less crits and less damage than a clan version even if you tried to build it with IS tech it'd fall woefully short.

That said, you could use standard lasers instead of ER's and probably not heat curve yourself out to badly. Wouldn't have the range or the damage of a Ryoken, but it'd be fairly close. Standard Large Lasers do not suck, ER Large Lasers outgunning ppc's was just insane.

[Major Tom]

You clanners are going to be in for a big surprise when you try to outfit IS mediums mechs. Its not about picking the one thing you can't max out, its all about picking what you have to sacrifice to max out that one thing.

Currently I don't see any medium mechs I would like to pilot, but I would take a dervish or blackjack if they make.

[Ordy]

Perhaps the best skirmisher mech ever is the TR1 Wraith!!! In the mini (board) game, 7/11/7 move. It was awesome....

[Chase Matthews]

I personally prefer to hit hard enough to drop Assault and Heavies, fast enough to tackle light and mediums, and resilient enough to handle them all at once.

[Gun Bear]

Capnflintlock, on 23 May 2012 - 08:18 AM, said:

Personally, I like having armor and firepower over speed. For example, my favorite medium mech is the hellspawn. Its got decent armor, and slots for beam and missle weaponary. I take off the jump jets, downgrade the engine, and maximize the armor and firepower.

My mechwarrior 4 load out for my hellspawn is as follows:
x1 LRM 15 / 1 ton of ammo
x1 SRM 6 / 2 tons of ammo
x1 Large Laser
x2 Medium Lasers
x2 heat sinks
Lams
13.5 tons of reflective Armor
Speed: 82 km/h

This package gives me fairly good striking power at all ranges, and a decent amount of armor to protect me. Its main weakness is of course, movement speed, and suseptibility to hard hitting ballisitic weapons such as AC20s. Additionally, with 2 heat sinks, the lasers will overheat you if you spam all 3 non stop, but just using the mediums and SRMS at close range can keep your heat level and deal quick damage.

So whats your guys favorite medium mechs, and how do you like to build them?

Another Hellspawn jocky? I like to modify mine with 8.5 tons of light ferro fibrous armor, and replace both LRM 10 racks with a single LRM 15 and two tons of ammo. I keep the rest of the package normal - makes an excellent heavy scout or medium command platform that way since it can stay in the fight long has a great speed for its size and carries almost maximum armor.

For MWO I'm looking for a Cicada to start with. I want to replace the engine with an XL version, upgrade the armor to 7.5 tons of Ferro, replace the small laser with a medium laser and add BAP and Guardian systems to it. The remaining weight will dependon hard point rules - ideally I want to mount a NARC Beacon or an SRM 4 with extra ammo but if hard points don't allow I will add jump jets and extra heat sinks. So it would be armed with 3 medium lasers for sure. Alternately I'll roll one out with pulse laser armament consisting of 2 md and 2 small. I'd focus the armor on the torso and legs since the arms on a cicada are basically just extra shielding against side attacks.

I'm hoping it will be something like this:
Engine 320 XL
Speed 86kh/129kh
Armor 7.5 tons Ferro Fibrous - 134 points
Equipment: BAP, Guardian, NARC Beacon Ammo RT
Weapons:
3 md laser RT, CT, LT
NARC Beacon RT

Edited by Gun Bear, 23 May 2012 - 09:57 AM.

[Mad Martigan]

If i'm going up aginst bigger mechs; fast and hard. The armor difference wont mean much when going up aginst that much more firepower.

When going up aginst same size and smaller mechs; armor and firepower. Everyone's fast, so you gotta be able to take that damage infighting and then put 'em down in one or two hits so you can move on to the next target quickly.

The only time you run fast and armored is if you're acting as a scout, which you don't do often as a medium.

[Vexgrave Lars]

Few Heavy weapons, Long Range, Energy heavy
Medium Armor
Defensive equipment (AMS/ECM)
Fast and Jump (MASC if I can get it)

Hit Hard, Get out, do it again.

Edited by Vexgrave Lars, 23 May 2012 - 09:59 AM.

[osito]

For me a medium has to have decent speed 5/8 min. and max/near max armor. For firepower in my medium i prefer something with decent range.