114 replies to this topic

[Speedy Plysitkos]

Hi, im new here.

I have some basic questions.

1) what is difference between clan / factions ?
2) can I purchase 1 mech only from clan offer (or there are only packs) ?
3) what is the difference between ressistance 1/2 , wave 2/3, urban mech offer ?
4) can i play with any mech (ie also from clan section) in any fight , or the clan mechs cannot play with regular mechs ?
I mean, can a timberwolf, play against atlas ?

th.

[IraqiWalker]

1- When we use "clan" we refer to a specific faction in the game (they are the ones with animals in their banners). Their technology works a bit differently, and so do their mechs. The real impact that choice would have on you is only in Community Warfare (explained below). You can always switch from faction to faction too.

2- You can purchase one level from a pack, For example, the Mist Lynx collection from Wave 2 is 30 dollars. You can get that, and you will receive three mist lynxes, along with a few other items that come with that collection.

If you want, you can purchase MC (Premium Currency), and then go into the mechlab in-game, and purchase the one specific variant that you want.

3- There is no difference in terms of performance. Each batch is a group of packaged mechs. Resistance 1 came before resistance 2, that's about it. Each one has it's own unique selection of mechs.

4- In public matches, you can pilot any mech. I just blew up a Timberwolf in my urban mech.

There is another mode of gameplay called "Community Warfare" It's under the faction tab in-game. It's a lot more competitive, and requires a lot more skill compared to the public queue, and in that one, you can only play the mechs from your faction. So if you are inner sphere, you can't pilot clan mechs in there, and vice versa.

(For the record, none of the package mechs will remain MC only. In fact, many of them are already available for C-Bills -in game currency- So you can actually just farm, and buy whichever mech you want, for free).

[jss78]

A couple of follow-up questions related to factions:

IraqiWalker, on 11 May 2015 - 01:14 AM, said:

The real impact that choice would have on you is only in Community Warfare (explained below). You can always switch from faction to faction too.

IraqiWalker, on 11 May 2015 - 01:14 AM, said:

There is another mode of gameplay called "Community Warfare" It's under the faction tab in-game. It's a lot more competitive, and requires a lot more skill compared to the public queue, and in that one, you can only play the mechs from your faction. So if you are inner sphere, you can't pilot clan mechs in there, and vice versa.

So do I understand correctly that your selected faction has no effect at all in PUG play?

The reason I ask is that I've only played PUG so far, but for purely BT lore/fluff-related reasons I wouldn't mind flying the colours of the FRR. So if I select FRR as my faction, and keep playing PUG, the only effect will be to show the FRR emblem next to my name?

But should I go play CW it'd naturally limit me to dropping with FRR only, and further limit me to only running IS mechs?

[SnagaDance]

jss78, on 11 May 2015 - 01:42 AM, said:

A couple of follow-up questions related to factions:





So do I understand correctly that your selected faction has no effect at all in PUG play?

The reason I ask is that I've only played PUG so far, but for purely BT lore/fluff-related reasons I wouldn't mind flying the colours of the FRR. So if I select FRR as my faction, and keep playing PUG, the only effect will be to show the FRR emblem next to my name?

But should I go play CW it'd naturally limit me to dropping with FRR only, and further limit me to only running IS mechs?

Completely correct. In addition I'd like to warn you NOT to take a Permanent Contract with any faction. Breaking a permanent contract is very, very expensive.

[Speedy Plysitkos]

thank you for answers.

so PUG = all mechs together, without any faction/clan limitations.
CW = faction/clan mechs limit.

[IraqiWalker]

Titannium, on 11 May 2015 - 01:57 AM, said:

thank you for answers.

so PUG = all mechs together, without any faction/clan limitations.
CW = faction/clan mechs limit.

Nailed right on the endo steel nail.

[bad arcade kitty]

>So do I understand correctly that your selected faction has no effect at all in PUG play?

yes

>But should I go play CW it'd naturally limit me to dropping with FRR only

no

>and further limit me to only running IS mechs?

yes

[jss78]

SnagaDance, on 11 May 2015 - 01:57 AM, said:

Completely correct. In addition I'd like to warn you NOT to take a Permanent Contract with any faction. Breaking a permanent contract is very, very expensive.

Many thanks -- and especially for the warning about permanent contract. I'd really like to select Canopus, but they're currently not in the game. So if PGI ever brings more minor factions in, I'll be on the first jumpship out to the Periphery.

[Gagis]

I doubt they will ever include more factions. The current selection has already fractured the player base into several very small groups, which makes the game play hard to keep going so I'd expect removing some current factions to be more likely than adding more.

[Speedy Plysitkos]

permanent contract is somthing you can do ingame ?

[mailin]

Whichever mech(s) the OP decides to purchase, there are a LOT of guides on the 'net, but a good general rule is that IS mechs might look inferior on paper (or screen) to clan mechs, but over the course of a long engagement, IS tends to dominate, however clan mechs can put out of lot of damage very quickly and at long range. Furthermore, IS lights are generally superior to clan lights, although that may change soon.

Overall, PGI did a pretty good job balancing IS versus clan, so it's pretty hard to go wrong whichever mechs you buy.

[Speedy Plysitkos]

can I see others mechs ? ingame, or here in forum ?

[bad arcade kitty]

>can I see others mechs ? ingame

only the weapon loadouts of enemy ones with your sensors (upper right of the screen) and friendly ones in the spectator mode (lower right of the screen)

>here in forum ?

no you cannot, unless somebody posts a smurfy link, smurfy statistics of popular builds http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/statistics
you can check some guides/builds/tier lists on http://metamechs.com

but generally everybody builds a mech to suit them personally depending on the play style

[Gagis]

Available mechs are listed in the Mech Lab and the Shop in game. You can browse them extensively. Detailed out of game information is available for example in the Smurfy's website: http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/

For the first mech, I recommend the Raven for Inner Sphere, since the 3L, Huginn and 2X are all top performers at the moment, and Stormcrow for Clans, since there is a top tier loadout for stormcrow for every style of play.

[dragnier1]

I don't think someone mentioned the Gift store. You can purchase individual mechs via the Gift store, as well as packs. The individual mechs are hand-picked by the developers (well we could say random selection, since we don't know what goes with their decision making).

Edited by dragnier1, 11 May 2015 - 04:39 AM.

[IraqiWalker]

I (and many others) would be happy to help you design builds for your mechs,

[Koniving]

Welcome to MWO.

Titannium, on 11 May 2015 - 12:52 AM, said:

Hi, im new here.

I have some basic questions.

1) what is difference between clan / factions ?
2) can I purchase 1 mech only from clan offer (or there are only packs) ?
3) what is the difference between ressistance 1/2 , wave 2/3, urban mech offer ?
4) can i play with any mech (ie also from clan section) in any fight , or the clan mechs cannot play with regular mechs ?
I mean, can a timberwolf, play against atlas ?

1) In MWO there are a total of 10 currently available factions.
Six of them are "Inner Sphere" or "House" Factions.
These consist of different forms of government -- typically monarchies -- which have control over VAST amounts of space (travel across all the space owned by Steiner (one of the larger factions) by leaping from star to star would supposedly take more than 100 years even with the Battletech equivalent of 'warp speed'.
These factions were once under one rule and protected by one military (the Star League). Then came the Amaris Coup. The leader was assassinated, and a man named something Amaris tried to take over. The supreme commander of the Star League's military (Aleksandr Kerensky) spent 13 years fighting his way into the Star League to take out the offender, only for the Five Major Houses to bicker among themselves for who should become the new Star Lord. Each began to fight each other in what became known as the Succession Wars.
Unable to maintain order, Aleksandr Kerensky executes Operation Exodus; taking over 90% of the Star League's military forces out of the Inner Sphere into self-imposed exile into unknown space.
Each of the Inner Sphere houses continued to fight wars for 300+ years.

They are covered briefly here:

The Inner Sphere's technology has been stagnated by 300 years of war. Their resources all but drained (not reflected in MWO). Their machines are centuries old and the understanding of their own technology is very limited compared to what it once was. Most of the workings of their Battlemechs are lost upon 3/4ths of the Inner Sphere population; even some corporations producing the machines shrug their shoulders at how their designs work and focus instead on maintaining the factories that produce them autonomously.

Four of them are "Clan" factions. You will note that "Clan" refers to the forces of invading, genetically-engineered humans who have spent almost 300 years in self-imposed exile beyond all known space and intend to conquer everything with one of two mentalities: Crusader (conquer all; enforce Clan ideals of founder Nicholas Kerensky and save the Inner Sphere from its ignorant and feuding leadership by ruling in their stead by establishing itself as a new Star League and force their way of life upon the Inner Sphere). Warden: (Protect all; enforce the ideals of original Star League Aleksandr Kerensky whilest remainder isolated from Inner Sphere culture (non-interference) and warding them against unknown external threats [including Crusader Clans and potentially 'aliens']).

The Clans (more than are available in MWO) are covered here.


The Clans, while they still have Battlemechs, have sent their recently developed and superior Omnimechs. While BattleMechs are difficult to customize (not reflected in MWO), Omnimechs make use of Omnipods for quick and easy customization that takes minutes to hours as opposed from weeks to years (reflected somewhat in MWO). Battlemechs can change most aspects but cannot change hardpoint limitations or body parts. Omnimechs can change hardpoints and body parts but are limited in other aspects (cannot change armor type/structure type, heatsink type or engine).

The principle difference between House Factions (Inner Sphere) and "The Clans" is what mechs they have available to them.

For Aleksandr Kerensky's vision and reasoning for his actions are covered in this canonical speech as voiced by George Ledeoux.

Sadly his message would not reach the outer limits of the Inner Sphere until the year 3800 and another 500 years to reach Terra [Earth]. It is currently 3050. It ironically is intercepted by an Inner Sphere task force long before this point as it sets out to completely wipe out the Clan Smoke Jaguar homeworld; the message brought back by the fleet to the Earth much sooner than old fashioned broadband microwave radio, due to using the much faster and even back in Kerensky's days very common Hyper Pulse communication.

---------------

2) "A la Carte" gives you this option. You can choose one chassis (type of mech; think of it like a car or truck), which gives you three (or four) variants (think of it like a make and model, for example if your chassis is a Dodge Ram pickup truck, then the variants would be a 1993 model, a 2001 model and a 2015 model of the Dodge Ram.)

I recommend that you play the game and find out if you like it before jumping on collecting pre-order mechs. Remember that all mechs presented in the preorder packs are going to become available for in-game earnings ('free').

3) Resistance 2 and Urbanmech are Inner Sphere pre-orders.

The Urbanmech is currently released but not yet available for 'free' gameplay earnings. It is a BattleTech mascot for the underdog; a 'trashcan' as the ongoing joke goes. Adorable, surprisingly deadly for its size, on paper it 'should be' worthless but in use with a skilled player of Battletech, a single Urbanmech could potentially wipe out an entire enemy team. In MWO it is also surprisingly capable non-stock, but it is far from an ideal starting mech.

Resistance 2 is a preorder to which none of the mechs even have 3D models yet. Preorders like this help PGI cover the development costs by allowing players who 'pre-ordered' the mechs to play them up to a month in advance of the 'free' release of the 'first' unit (and up to 4 months in advance of the fourth unit).

Clan waves:
Wave 1 and 2 are already released. It is actually somewhat questionable that they are still available for purchase, though admittedly it remains the most affordable shortcut to getting those 'Mechs.

Wave 3 is a pre-order, while Wave 3 does now have 3D models they have yet to be released and are being tested internally by the developers in preparation for their release into paying hands soon™, some time (month to four months) before their availability for 'free' users.

The principle reason to obtain a preorder package is the primary variant of any 'Mech in the preorder has unique Geometrical (3D model) traits that set it apart from other mechs; these have no effect on gameplay but they give you an eye-catching "Look, I'm different!" bit of eyecandy to use. This is in additional to a permanent 30% earnings increase that occurs when using said primary variant.

4) In public matches and private matches you can use any mech against any mech.
In Faction tab (also known as Community Warfare), you are limited to the kind of mechs that are generically associated with your faction type (Inner Sphere BattleMechs for any House faction [i.e. Atlas]. Clan OmniMechs for Clan faction [i.e. Timberwolf]).

You're welcome. Feel free to ask anything else.

[Rogue Jedi]

Titannium, on 11 May 2015 - 12:52 AM, said:

Hi, im new here.

I have some basic questions.

1) what is difference between clan / factions ?
2) can I purchase 1 mech only from clan offer (or there are only packs) ?
3) what is the difference between ressistance 1/2 , wave 2/3, urban mech offer ?
4) can i play with any mech (ie also from clan section) in any fight , or the clan mechs cannot play with regular mechs ?
I mean, can a timberwolf, play against atlas ?

th.

1) a Faction is any of the powers you can take a contract, the 5 Inner Sphere Houses the FRR (an IS faction not ruled by a great house) and 4 Clans, Koniving did a fine job of describing what a Clan is
2) there are many ways to get a Mech,
Occaisionaly they are offered as rewards in an event (events happen most weekends with Mech prizes about every 2-3 months)
you can buy them in the ingame store for Cbills (earned ingame curency) or MC (ingame curency purchased with real money)
you can buy a "mastery pack" from the store, they contain 3 varients of a chassis (the Hero, ^{a varient with a unique paintjob and hardpoint layout with a 30% cbill earning boost}, the champion ^{with a 30% XP boost and most of the upgrades done when you first purchase it, otherwise identical to a cbill varient}, and a regular varient)
from the gift store
a preorder pack.

3) the mechs in the packs differ, also wave 1, wave 2 and some of resistance 1 are available ingame, urbanmech cannot yet be purchased ingame, wave 3 and resistance 2 are still preorders, the Mechs will be released over the next few months, with MC availability about a month after the Mech is released, and Cbill release about a month after they are available for MC

jss78, on 11 May 2015 - 01:42 AM, said:

A couple of follow-up questions related to factions:

So do I understand correctly that your selected faction has no effect at all in PUG play?

The reason I ask is that I've only played PUG so far, but for purely BT lore/fluff-related reasons I wouldn't mind flying the colours of the FRR. So if I select FRR as my faction, and keep playing PUG, the only effect will be to show the FRR emblem next to my name?

But should I go play CW it'd naturally limit me to dropping with FRR only, and further limit me to only running IS mechs?

if you play an Inner Sphere faction e.g. FRR then you can only launch an attack on a faction you border, if it is against an IS faction then your team would be made up exclusively of FRR faction members, if however you join an attack on a Clan held world then all IS factions can join the fight.

however there are a lot of prizes available, the second prize for each faction is a Mechbay, if you are after limiting your spending it would be well worth takeing a 1 week contract sith each faction to get the free Mechbays before considering permanently choosing a faction

[Speedy Plysitkos]

Thank you very much guys, for nice welcome. Right now im limited with posting, (rookie can only 5 per day).
Im trying now trial mechs... so will see, what i like the most...., but men, they are overheating like toasters ))))

Ill b back soon, as i touch the mechs.... and gain enough Cbills, to buy my first one.... )

Edited by Titannium, 11 May 2015 - 11:33 PM.

[mailin]

One way to help with overheating is to set up weapon groups. Use the arrow keys and the right ctrl button to do this. Set up at least one group of weapons to chain fire (pressing backspace will toggle between chain fire which fires a single weapon and then moves on and alpha strike where all weapons fire at once).

You can also switch between chain fire and alpha strike while in game by pressing the backspace key.