44 replies to this topic

[wikkedj]

The Urbanmech package caught my eye recently and I've been mulling it over for a week or so now. Now from what I've seen thus far, it looks like it requires a fair amount of skill to be effective in. I do not possess a high level of skill! Is that a fair assessment?

Any input would be great.

[Dawnstealer]

Fun little mech and if built right, actually punches pretty hard for a little guy. Play it like a fragile Medium and you'll do okay.

[sandworm16]

You can probably simulate the experience by running a jenner with a 210 engine in it and putting two large lasers in the left arm.

[Dawnstealer]

sandworm16, on 14 May 2015 - 06:55 AM, said:

You can probably simulate the experience by running a jenner with a 210 engine in it and putting two large lasers in the left arm.

[IraqiWalker]

It does require some skill. The urbanmech may classified as a light mech, but don't think of it that way. Think of it as a mobile heavy weapons platform. You are tiny, but you pack a mean punch. Slap on big guns, and hide behind your big brothers, and help them hurt people.

So far, they have been a blast for me. The speed is capped at 106 Kph with speed tweak, so it goes as fast as a kitfox if you go with max engine. On the other hand, you could slap an AC20 in there, with a tiny XL, and 2 tons of ammo, plus a couple of small lasers, and really ruin someone's day.

One of the best features about it is that it has 360 degree rotation. This means that charging, or running away, you can go full speed. It will take a while for you to get used to the rotation, but once you do, you can use this puppy in surprising ways.

The mech really does thrive in urban settings and cover heavy locations. Your weapons are high mounted, so you can poke with the best of them (I had a game where I had dealt at least 200 damage before the enemy team even landed a single hit on me, because of how good this guy is at using cover). Also, because of your speed being so low, you have no trouble rounding corners at full speed, with JJs added, the mech can generate great lulz from spectators. Had a match on river city where I tied up a dakkaphract, thunderwub, and a stalker, solo, for over a minute, because I kept dancing around them and using the buildings to make sure I can hit them, and they don't. Juking with JJs was hilarious. I round one corner, and then immediately jump on top of a building, they are running where they think I am, and I pop behind them from out of nowhere as far as they are concerned, and shoot them where they don't like it. Some yakety sax, and a possibly brown dog named Scooby may have been involved as well XD. I died eventually, but it was hilarious.

(All my builds are using MGs, btw)

There are downsides:
you are almost all CT.
you are not as fast as other lights (not really a problem since you weren't built for it.
You can't afford a big gun, if you want to use all the hardpoints
You can't afford a big gun(with a sensible amount of ammo), if you want to go super fast.

I honestly did not build for the quirks, and the mech still performed beautifully.

sandworm16, on 14 May 2015 - 06:55 AM, said:

You can probably simulate the experience by running a jenner with a 210 engine in it and putting two large lasers in the left arm.

Do not desecrate the holy Urbie.
(this is all in jest XD)

EDIT: Ninja'd by Dawnstealer

Edited by IraqiWalker, 14 May 2015 - 07:53 AM.

[Shalune]

On paper it looks like it plays like a Kit Fox. Is this roughly accurate?

[stealthraccoon]

Go big ballistics or go home!

As others said, think of the Urbie as the littlest Hunchback that could. If you want to run a peppy laser boat, there are other choices, but nothing compares to a 360 rotating auto cannon that can scuttle behind cover or behind other mechs with ease. Using an XL 170 and endo gives you room for an AC10, but you'll be on the fragile side (unless you're used to Locusts) - I opt of the AC20 or a gauss and revel in the blaze of glory! For me the only acceptable energy weapon is a small laser or two, but I'm a purist.

Edited by stealthraccoon, 17 May 2015 - 12:46 PM.

[Richard Hazen]

I struggle to equip ballistics on mine unless I want to seriously invest in them, my favourite atm it a four medium pulse laser and two MGs, closely followed by 2 Medium pulse lasers and four MGs. Only the four medium pulse laser mech has xl engine and dual heat sinks atm. I made a build to put an ultra ac5 with a fast engine and a medium laser, not sure whether it would do much though. I'm not good with slow mechs, especially ones that barely move, so I have to put bigger faster in mine, that causes problems with fitting the bigger autocannons.

Edited by Deimos Alpha, 20 May 2015 - 04:20 AM.

[Jody Von Jedi]

UM-60 with (1) PPC and (4) MG.................. priceless.

[IraqiWalker]

All my urbies are running MGs in the ballistics slot, that has more to do with me being a freak for MGs, than the weapon itself (If I could, I would turn 40 tons of the 50.5 the DWF gets, into MGs, and the rest is ammo).

[Voivode]

Pretty fricken fun!

My experience is that the best engine for it is the XL 170. It gives you just north of 100KPH and you get a decent amount of weight for weapons. I use that engine on all three of my urbies

UMR60L - (1)AC5 + (4)ML
UMR63 - (1) LB-10X + (2)SL
UMR60 - (4)MG + (2)ERLL

All of them going 101 KPH and sporting a jump jet or two.

Down and dirty dumpster death dealers.

Edited by Voivode, 20 May 2015 - 09:58 AM.

[Tastian]

I thoroughly enjoyed leveling my urbies. Find the pack of heavies in your group and hug their ankles. I even escort assaults. I run mine like this:

(all max engine and a couple jump jets)

4 Med Pulse
3 Med Pulse, 3 mg
1 Large Pulse, 1 Med, 2 mg

You have lots of enemies - dual gauss will kill you in one shot, Splat Crows are the same speed as you, lights will outrun and out dps you. But if you find a warm comfy spot in the middle of your team and look for red enemy parts you will largely go unnoticed and that's when you let your damage fly.

[stealthraccoon]

Endo, xl145, ac20 3 tons of ammo (21 shots), small laser, 1 jump jet and 3 tons of armor...

But if you want real fun, ditch the laser and jump jet and up grade to an xl180 - like someone welded an Ac20 to some Commando legs.

About the best I can do, but it sure looks sexy in House Liao paint!

Edited by stealthraccoon, 20 May 2015 - 03:33 PM.

[Nightshade24]

Picture this, but more dakka.

[Yankesik]

I've got a good, fun build with UAC/5 and 3 ML for the R63, I'll post it when I'll have a bit more time

Edit: Here it is, works really cool, the only downside is the lack of jumpjets.

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...67dd57590fb527c

Edited by Yankesik, 22 May 2015 - 01:21 PM.

[SnagaDance]

Haven't got one myself but had a great game against one last week.

It was an Assault game on Crimson Straights and we had the big bay base. We clashed on the saddle and underneath the huge cover at the end of the tunnel as both teams tried a similar approach, 4 mechs through the saddle and 8 through the tunnel. Some great brawling erupted as people also started to use the upper deck and you constantly shifted to where the action was.

I had noticed an Urbanmech at the saddle and managed to burn away its CT armor with an alpha from my Grasshopper. People were eager to finish the little guy off but there was a Direwolf and a Timberwolf beyond that ridge as well making anyone who tried to peek pay heavily.

Our team prevailed in the brawl as we exhibited better discipline and situation awareness (no Light chasing or people going Rambo, shifting our forces around constantly to where they were needed) we had downed 9 of them and they 6 of us. In chat there was the important question of "Did anyone get that Urby?". Nope, it had gotten away.

Even though I was rather beat up I made the decision to go in the front looking for the missing mechs. We surmised they had all retreated to base and went through the tunnel. I had a lead start and peeped both the Urby and a Shad near their base under the train track. I shifted to the higher buildings and got a nasty surprise, an almost fresh Warhawk! I fired a few salvoes but then had to disengage to cool off.

Not wanting to be backstabbed by the other 2 mechs I moved closer to their base, taking out a turret on the way. I noticed all 5 of my teammates were after the Warhawk who was leading them on a merry chase towards the bay. It was dead for sure but I was without back-up.

After standing still for a while after slaggin that turret I decided to inch closer (yes, I was impatient, you should wait for your teammates in such a situation). I took only a few steps when all of a sudden I was hit by fire in my back and on my arm, from an angle where I shouldn't be recieving fire from, there's supposed to be a building there!!

I turned and there he was. The Urby. The building actually had an inward angle there but it wasn't any viable cover for most mechs. But that Urby fit just fine. He was even hard to detect against the textures of that building.

Great patience on his part. I had slagged that turret just past his position so he knew I was there. Probably had Seismic as well as he hadn't moved while I stood there waiting to see what my team was doing.

I can only guess that it was due to me twisting my upper torso and looking around a bit and my rear armor having been untouched up to that point that I got away with that.

I turned and his next shots landed all across my mech. I knew just where he was damaged though and a alpha right to the CT took him out before his weapons could cycle for a third salvo.


I was in bad shape and wasn't planning on risking the rest of the base turrets but my team had finished with the Warhawk and 2 of our Mediums strode into their base and found the rather battered Shadowhawk who for some reason was 'hiding' in the open water in the map corner near his base. 12 kills win.

Had to praise that Urbanmech pilot in the after-game chat though. True Urby moment, spoiled for him by mostly luck on my part. Made me decide I'd like to get some Urbies in the future as well (still need to finish grinding ~20 mechs first though...).

Edited by SnagaDance, 22 May 2015 - 01:51 AM.

[Wildstreak]

Best Urbies were:
2LL & MGs/SLs on all three
3LL R60L
runner ups, 2LPL (close range PPCs) & 2ERL + MPL (ranged fighter).

sandworm16, on 14 May 2015 - 06:55 AM, said:

You can probably simulate the experience by running a jenner with a 210 engine in it and putting two large lasers in the left arm.

Just not the same.

Shalune, on 14 May 2015 - 11:32 PM, said:

On paper it looks like it plays like a Kit Fox. Is this roughly accurate?

No, I have both and to Fox plays different especially due to ECM. What it plays like depends on your Urbie build, mine were closer to Ravens-2Xs with different quirks.

[Innocent]

Look good to me, i put 4 ac20 rounds from much hunchie to the CT of one standing still at 100m and didn't get through its armor.

[Brother MEX]

wikkedj, on 14 May 2015 - 06:44 AM, said:

The Urbanmech package caught my eye recently and I've been mulling it over for a week or so now. Now from what I've seen thus far, it looks like it requires a fair amount of skill to be effective in. I do not possess a high level of skill! Is that a fair assessment?

Any input would be great.

IF you have to ask, the URBIE isnt the right package for you !
Better get a Resistance pack for 20 or 40 bucks, the Panther or the Wolfhound would be both better LIGHT mechs than the URBIE !

IF you want to invest more than 20 bucks, you can also get a medium too, AND upgrade to a bigger package later.
The URBIE packages are just for fans of the classic BattleTech games which love to play this "useless" mech, which currently is allowed to use a much to big engine ( which should be reduced to a 150 or smaller ).
Actually the URBIE is best simulated with a SPIDER and a XL100-180 engine ... same weight & same size !

Edited by Brother MEX, 22 May 2015 - 05:30 AM.

[IraqiWalker]

Ignore the foul blasphemies of people who don't know how to pilot lights that go below 150Kph.

The urban mech is quite solid with what it does. Which is bring heavy guns to the field in a very small package. On Canyon network my UM-R63 suppressed 3 clan heavies, simply because it can use almost any piece of terrain as cover, and poke for shots quickly.

In urban environments like River City, Crimson Straight, Frozen, and Mining Collective, the mech is a true monster. All buildings offer you great cover from incoming fire. Your hard capped speed allows you to traverse these locations without having to slow down. Adding Jumpjets into the mix allows you to juke, and trick your opponents to the point of complete frustration on their part.

In River City Night (for the record, my urbie for that one had phoenix black paint, all over it, so it was double as hard to see), I used those traits to great effect holding back a Cataphract, Stalker, and Battlemaster. Running in-between buildings, firing on their rear, getting them to chase me around a corner, only for me to have jump jetted back behind them without their notice.

In those locations, you feel like you're waging guerilla warfare with that tiny mech.

On the other hand, the same amount of money can get you a Resistance pack. So it's up to you.