48 replies to this topic

[juxstapo]

I've been here since the forums opened. Participated in the first wave of closed beta invites, dropped a stupid amount of cash on this and that.. helped form a team... and after two years and change burning up countless hours on this game it honestly started to get a littttttle bit stale.

So I've elected to drop back into the solo queue, and play (literally: "play: /pla/ verb 1. engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than serious or practical purpose.") with mechs I had previously skipped over.

I'm a fan of Davion, I'm a fan of mediums, but I had never taken the time and invested the effort to achieve any degree of competence in Cents. Even earned my freebie -AL

With the recent sale I snagged $15 worth of MC and rolled into a Yen-Lo and a CS9-A(C). First stop: kitted out the A(C) with a stock config; AC/10, 2x mLas, LRM10.
Lore Correct? Yes.
Super Effective? I don't care.

I didn't go so lore correct as to shed down to TT armor values, and I've a larger engine and double heatsinks... so the character I'm playing served under Prince Victor in multiple engagements against the Clans and for his decorated service was awarded upgraded tech for his ride, he's just that good.

I'm loving this mech with this build. I'm putting out damage numbers lower than I think I ever have.
I have to strain my efforts more into staying alive than aggressively stomping this mech or that. (Staying alive while dealing damage of course, not running and hiding).
The Cent is considered the FedSun's "Trooper mech". It's most common, general purpose machine. Even as a kid I found that idea rather fascinating. Imagine warehouses just adjacent to the massive lostech mech production facility where rows of CN9's stand waiting to be loaded into dropships for transport to various garrisons and training camps. The concept of a trooper mech period was interesting; this machine might not be the absolute best at anything, but we've got the wherewithal to produce it in reasonable numbers, so we're going to use it.

Lessee, on that count Davion has the Cent; Liao the Vindicator; DCMS has the Panther and Dragon but I'm not sure what medium. What about the Lyrans? (no, not an Atlas)

Anyway; the shortcomings is actually what is making this thing so interesting. I've got over 80 machines in my stables, many of them rocking popular flavors of meta; but what makes this thing so much fun is it's shortcomings and limitations.

Advice for the freshly minted pilot in the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns:
First off, stay alive MechWarrior.
Quite a few Comstar Bills went into training you and keeping that machine functioning. Your CN9 is a capable, flexible BattleMech; it can take a few scratches while you find cover, but you will learn to find and use cover. Even the heaviest armored Assault class monster will wither under concentrated fire, and we're not trusting you with an Assault mech yet, not by a long shot, so find that cover and don't give the other side the chance to put multiple guns on you.

Next: The Heavy and Assault class machines in your company carry more weight, both literally and figuratively than you. They can move the mountains, your job is to lend a hand and protect their flanks. Yes, I said "protect". The big boys are seriously vulnerable to flanking maneuvers, especially when they're trading hammer blows with the big guns on the other side. Your job isn't to play the Grim Reaper, executing enemy mechs and racking up kill after kill. No no son, your job is to play back-door guard. To run those pesky lights and mediums away from our flanks so the big boys can do the real work. Now when the opportunity presents itself, put a round or two into the enemy assaults, sure thing. But don't get so distracted by pie in the sky notions of glory that you forget your job or needlessly expose yourself. Getting all starry eyed daydreaming about being the conquering hero while on the business end of an Atlas or Daishi will nix your career real quick.

(oops, RL calling, to be continued)

Edited by juxstapo, 02 August 2014 - 04:39 PM.

[jackswift]

As a lover of all the Centurions (my favorite chassis by far), I will be looking forward to your future posts and the new ways to enjoy this stalwart chassis.

[Koniving]

(For fun.. an original help video by 7NationArmy. We had a team of 3 [to 4] Trial Centurion CN9-Ds. LB-10x. LRM-10. Lasers. XL engine. 272 armor. Fast. Nasty. Easily killed in poor hands. Recorded from his perspective.

In the 5 sorties, we won 4. The one we lost I crashed at the start of the match. We operated with me as the commander, Verrick and himself as lance mates. When possible we attacked in unison, and when not possible we divided and conquered. At the time the SRMs were still massively overpowered and LRMs not so much [they did do somewhere in the 1.6 to 1.8 damage range but this was before HSR when half the time they didn't even register].



In the Caustic Valley scenes, we chose to try something new. We were going to assault the base by using the farthest stretches of the map right on the boundary line. For some reason the entire team followed us despite us obviously being in trial mechs. I wasn't particularly known at the time so not sure why. We made it most of the way there when our base got attacked by scouts. Most of their forces were lined up at the Caldera. So our lance returned to base while the other lance engaged 5 enemies. [4 versus 5]. The 4 of us trial Centurions returning to save the base as the only things fast enough to get there in time. Once we succeeded, we received a distress call from a Stalker. So we returned just a little too late to save him but in time to avenge him.)
----------
It really is a good mech. It doesn't compare to my Hunchbacks. However no other mech has ever had a maneuver unique to itself like the Centurion did.

The Centurion's Charge (short-changed to Centurion Rush at times) is from back in the delayed convergence days. It involved waiting for the "Warning: Targeted" alert to come up when an enemy lines up its crosshair on you and then whipping your left arm forward. This instantly screws up their convergence, causing their shots to spread rather than be pinpoint and your shield will take the brunt of it. You could (at the time) also hook your right arm under your left shield so that you could shoot the enemy while protecting your body with the shield.

Nostalgia.

Spoiler

....God I miss closed beta. Some things are better now, but I loved the slower pace. Lack of pinpoint. 64.8 kph mediums. And that in the smoke in the distance when you saw the glowing red eyes of the Atlas you'd hit R and type "Atlas B5 HELP!" as quick as you could because a single intelligently built DPS Atlas could wipe out about 5 players in about 4 minutes of straight up brawling. Meanwhile a burst-damage Atlas might have killed 1 player in about 20 seconds, he'd be dead before he could move again. The good old days.

Edited by Koniving, 02 August 2014 - 05:02 PM.

[dragnier1]

I kind of like the D the most, it could fit an xl335.

[IraqiWalker]

This is truly wonderful, and I enjoy it. People need to pay more attention to this. Since the biggest problem in this team-oriented game is that everyone plays in an individualistic manner. Especially in the PuG queue.

[juxstapo]

Alright boy, your CN9-A is an excellent piece of war machine; it's the Federated Sun's workhorse medium weight chassis for a reason. Whatever might be demanded of a soldier, this mech can do it. But it's up to you how well it does it.

The pride and joy of an -A variant Cent pilot is the class 10 Luxor -D series cannon. The 10 packs as much punch as many Main Battle Tanks with an optimal range of 450 meters. With training you can reach out and tap targets as far as 900 meters, but by then the shell has lost much of it's velocity so shots like that are highly situational. The combination of an active probe and advanced sensor and target info modules your mech has been modified to carry allows you to receive detailed information about the condition of your target very quickly, and the Luxor will allow you to exploit any weak spots with high accuracy and strong pinpoint damage potential, if you can shoot well enough to do the weapon justice.
Your astechs will keep your machine running in tip top shape, they will manually clean the bore and feed mechanisms of your cannon and missile rack and lubricate the chain drives after every live fire session; and you, my friend, will spend four hours at the end of every training day helping them do this. Many mechwarriors consider themselves above such menial tasks, but in the AFFS every fighting man and woman will know how to maintain his or her equipment in any circumstance, with tech support and without.
During combat training you will learn to protect your autocannon. As your primary source of firepower you will downright mother the thing. Aside from it's manipulators the most useful aspect of the Cent's left arm is it's armored shield and you will perfect the art of placing this between the more fragile and important parts of your mech (such as yourself, or more so your cannon), and incoming fire. You will learn to snapshoot out to the Luxor's max effect of 450, and you will learn to lead moving targets all the way out to 900. You will learn to fire on pursuing enemies at full speed with your mech's arm and torso stretched to their extremity. You will crawl out of your cockpit, climb down the arm and manually clear the ejection port in the event of a stoppage. And finally, much like the the Yankee riflemen of old loved their Brown Besses, you will learn to love the Luxor -D; consider that an order.

[juxstapo]

Ok, I've basic'd the A.

I have to say that mech returned by far the lowest numbers at the end of a match I think I've ever experienced.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, however.

On a couple of occasions I would moonlight with alternate loadouts, but I kept coming back to a lore correct(ish) build of an AC/10, twin mLas, and dual LRM 5's w/art. And I'm sure you gathered, this is my "I'm playing mechwarrior" mech, very different from my "I'm competing in MWO" mechs. (Yeah, I slapped dual PPCs and a Gauss on my TMB-S the instant the Clan packs were delivered, and yeah, it matches my CTF-3D just fine).
This is the mech I play when I have a role playing dialog going in mah noggin. It's fun.

Having a single AC/10 as your primary, especially a low mounted one with full arm movement, really makes you appreciate TIG and work hard to perfect lobbing those shots just so.

The medium lasers are bread and butter on any mech, but it seems more pronounced on this one. Buried deep in your center torso. I'm essentially learning what skilled zombie-cent pilots have known for over a year: Those CT mediums rock. (No, not attempting to zombie, I like the weight/speed of the XL too much). I've occasionally tried other beam weapons in this spot, but the efficiency of the mediums (and the lore correct aspect), brought me full circle.

I am not a good LRM'er, full stop. And like many of my peers, I've long harbored the idea that LRM's are only worthwhile en masse. You will never find me hating on the LRM boats, nor despising them as "skillless", that playstyle is straight up hard. Requires timing, positioning skills and serious patience. I got bored with it too quick to ever properly learn it.
However, the TT/Lore notion of tacking an LRM rack here and there as a secondary weapon system... is rather silly with these game mechanics... but man it adds depth and funness to the roleplay. It's like an infantryman's grenade pouch. Tossing 10 missles across the way as you stomp towards your next target doesn't exactly ruin anyone's day or boost your KDR or anything, but it does bump your damage number a teensy bit... and it is simply fun.

Leveling the -AL next. Have it set up exactly like the -A, but with a pair of Large lasers and heatsinks replacing the cannon and ammo.

[Gravitas]

I'm ] [ this close to mastering my -AL, but I have been having a lot of fun with my Centurions. I started with the freebie -A(C) we were given, and proceeded to have fun with them all as I progressed. My -AL is running with an ERPPC as the right arm weapon, and my -D has an LB10-X. The -D was the first mech I had ever gotten 5 kills with in a match, as when the armor is down, it does wonders crit seeking. I stick with SRMs in the torso rack on all of mine, especially now with the improvement again in SRM hit detection. And of course, those standard 2 mediums are quick to recycle and heat efficient in just about any build.

I also find my now fast moving Cents (once basic'd and with an XL in two of them) to be great compliments to a larger heavy or assault partner. Can certainly keep lights from harassing them while keeping up with decent support damage. The Cent also makes a good finisher.

If you choose to keep STD engines, every variant does well as a zombie mech, and sometimes that just flat out surprises people in the "WHY AREN'T THEY DEAD YET?!" way. As you shoot them again.

Edited by Gravitas, 06 August 2014 - 12:18 PM.

[IraqiWalker]

juxstapo, on 05 August 2014 - 11:37 AM, said:

Leveling the -AL next. Have it set up exactly like the -A, but with a pair of Large lasers and heatsinks replacing the cannon and ammo.

Try Da Beam Wang

For your AL. It's a great build, and it loves the XL engine.

[juxstapo]

That will be my Final Form for the AL. Once I basic everything as close to stock as I can (and probably elite the -A), I'll move the -AL to the Yen-Lo-Wub build to train for the real thing.

[juxstapo]

Wound up swapping the dual Larges for a PPC and more 'sinks.

Just had a very entertaining match on HPG. The enemy team massed under a DDC's ECM umbrella behind one of the ramps, my guys formed a firing line up top and on the opposite side of said ramp. We were rather spread out but in this case it was a good thing because we kept pressure on two sides of their death ball.

I wound up doing 474 dmg with 8 assists, which is some of the best numbers I've done in a Cent thusfar. But I feel there isn't a way to score my actual contribution. I spent roughly a third of my game time in that match popping from one bit of cover to the next and switching off the DDC's ecm with my particle cannon. Granted my shots were imprecise and I scattered damage all over him. For some reason no one else elected to focus down the DDC, and yea, I mentioned him in chat. But while I kept the ecm down, my team inexorably moved in on the other mechs in his formation.
I died with no kills, but felt, much like Thomas the train: Really Useful that match.

Other side fought very well also, even the DDC who spent most of his time counter sniping me; final score was 12 to 10. Love hard fought matches.

[Malleus011]

Excellent thread. I've been running my Cents in 'near stock' (DHS and small tweaks) as well, and it's a blast.

The Lyran 'trooper' medium would probably be the Griffin. Marik might be the Wolverine. Kurita I'm more fuzzy on; the Kintaro comes to mind, but it might also be the Phoenix Hawk (I recall them having a lot of them). The Centurion for Davion and Vindicator for Liao are excellent trooper 'mechs and battlefield foes. Heck, duels between the two models might private match videos after the Wind Indicator comes out.

[Rando Slim]

Really cool thread man, well written and enjoyable. I wrote a few battle stories for my Jenners when I first started playing but I did two of them and just got lazy. This inspires me to want to do some sort of writining/playing combo, so sorry if I I copycat you with a different chassis sometime.

I'm hot and cold towards Cents, they look awesome but just seem to be outclassed right now. I have a hard time evaluating my effectiveness in them and really any mech, due to inconsistency of pug matchmaking, but its generally a mech I probably cant exceed 600-700 damage in on my best effort. Still I really like idea of roleplaying a chassis, too bad I literally own all the ones I want except maybe spiders so I cant start from basic. I COULD do this with Awesomes (I got really ****** up one night and bought one) but I am probably not man enough for that.

[Artur Valour]

This is the best thread I have read in a while. Please, write more. Wouldn't mind seeing you hit another chassis next, when you are done with the Centurion.

[SethAbercromby]

I just bought the CN9-A thanks to the 35% discount and had an STD250 and Gauss Rifle lying around in my inventory so I decided to just mash all thre together aided by the magical properties of Endo Steel and Ferro Armor. And I'm having a load of fun. Sniping someone from the Centurion can be a little tricky though and I still have to stop myself thinking of being in a Skirmisher, though fast agressive Gauss rushes can be quite sucessful at times.

I'm considering upgrading to an STD275, AC5 and 2xSRM4 at some point though and will see how that feels.

[juxstapo]

thanks much for the encouragement guys, time permitting I'd be happy to goof off like this with other chassis.

Seth, something I picked up (or rather, had foisted on me), by the more practical, meta minded engineering type amongst the Corsai... okay it was Terciel;

Put that Gauss rifle on every unused weapon group you have. Like Gauss on 2 (since it's in your right arm), mediums on 1, LRMs (if you have them) on 3 or whatever, and then the Gauss on 4, 5, and 6.
Then when the Gauss is charged you'll have four telltales light up green around your crosshairs instead of one. Seems a trivial thing but it helped me with my Gauss builds quite a lot. (Staring at the crosshairs you tend to notice the "movement" of the pixels changing colors more than you consciously register the colors themselves)

[SethAbercromby]

juxstapo, on 12 August 2014 - 08:10 PM, said:

Put that Gauss rifle on every unused weapon group you have. Like Gauss on 2 (since it's in your right arm), mediums on 1, LRMs (if you have them) on 3 or whatever, and then the Gauss on 4, 5, and 6.
Then when the Gauss is charged you'll have four telltales light up green around your crosshairs instead of one. Seems a trivial thing but it helped me with my Gauss builds quite a lot. (Staring at the crosshairs you tend to notice the "movement" of the pixels changing colors more than you consciously register the colors themselves)

To be honest, I've never really had touble with that after feeling my way into the "charge rythm". As long as I can hear the charge and keep one eye on the indicator, I can get very close to to firing the instant it is charged. Not that I need the weapon groups though, so I might use that for visual sake.

I considered the stock Medium Lasers a given, so i didn't mention them, but mounting a Gauss on top of a STD250 would only allow for missiles if I were to drop the mediums, ammo and/or a lot of armor.

[ice trey]

juxstapo, on 02 August 2014 - 04:39 PM, said:

With the recent sale I snagged $15 worth of MC and rolled into a Yen-Lo and a CS9-A(C). First stop: kitted out the A(C) with a stock config; AC/10, 2x mLas, LRM10.
Lore Correct? Yes.
Super Effective? I don't care.

[ice trey]

juxstapo, on 02 August 2014 - 04:39 PM, said:

Lessee, on that count Davion has the Cent; Liao the Vindicator; DCMS has the Panther and Dragon but I'm not sure what medium. What about the Lyrans? (no, not an Atlas)

DCMS doesn't really make their own medium. Pre 3039, they only have about five mech production lines. Not factories... lines. They churned out Panthers, Quickdraws, Dragons (and lowtech grand dragons), Chargers, and Stinger LAMs. The Jenner lines were blown up during the late succession wars. During the War of 3039, they manage to take Quentin system, which included Independence Weaponry, giving them the ability to make Atlases, Marauders, Jagermechs, and Victors. They also started to manufacture the Mauler and Hatamoto-Chi some time around that point. By this point, the DC doesn't really make medium mechs. The first one I can think of is the Wolf Trap.

The Lyrans have the Hatchetman

The Free Worlds league have... well, most of what they're famous for are mediums. The staple is the Hermes II, but the Cicada, Trebuchet, and Hunchback are also made there.

juxstapo, on 02 August 2014 - 04:39 PM, said:

Anyway; the shortcomings is actually what is making this thing so interesting. I've got over 80 machines in my stables, many of them rocking popular flavors of meta; but what makes this thing so much fun is it's shortcomings and limitations.

For all that players on the forums complain about the "Bads", and gripe if you're not using the most min-maxed designs, I have had more fun using something I'm comfortable with. From what I've noticed, Good teamwork is far more effective than having an entire team of Quad AC20 Dire Wolves, so what you bring is mostly a moot point.

I like to stick to canon, as long as the canon variants can be comfortably used with three firing triggers. Some 'mechs I end up streamlining or customizing so that I can use it to fill a specific role (Example - Kintaro 18 and Shadowhawk 2D2 have been turned into Streak boats for protecting team-mates from lights), but that role is never "How many guns can I cram on this thing to get the most optimum Alpha".

For example, I made a Jenner into a perfect recreation (according to tonnage) of the Panther PNT-10K. It runs hot as hell, and uses single heat sinks, but it managed to get me at least one kill during the Steiner event. I have a Hunchback that recreates Shakir Jerrar's Hunchback from Starterbook Sword and Dragon. I was so close to being able to recreate my favorite assault mech, the Thug THG-11E by using an Awesome, but MWO's engine caps were set too low, preventing me from using the 320 engine I needed. Also, my DDC is an homage to Samsonov's Atlas from the Historical Turning Points Galtor PDF, with a couple of tweaks to get an ECM system in there. On a less major note, my K2 Catapult is actually a K3 Catapult, and my Flame (Dragon) is the closest I could get to a DRG-5K Grand Dragon - because I am still upset that MWO never introduced Grand Dragon variants for the Dragon. The difference is in name, alone.

Edited by ice trey, 13 August 2014 - 03:19 AM.

[Mole]

Just popping in to say that I am a Centurion pilot myself. I own and have mastered the CN9-AL and I run it with full armor, the biggest XL engine in can fit since what kills me more often than anything in my cent is my CT anyway, and as far as its weaponry I have it running 2 streak SRM 2s, 2 medium lasers, and 2 PPCs. It gives the mech some pretty extensive firepower for a mech of its weight class and a good striking range as well. I like it so much I'm honetly not certain why I've never seen anyone else discover this build as I have.