As others have said, it's hard to say what there might be about the way you play that people are reacting to. Some general thoughts though (apologies -- this will probably be long!):
The Prime has ERLL, which have a long burn time. If you're not able to hold them on your target for most/all of the beam duration, then you're going to do minimal damage. If you're trying to play as a sniper and you're not able to hold the lasers on target AND you're a long way from the rest of your team, the more vocal players might complain. In the solo queue, playing as a dedicated sniper is fairly difficult (IMO) as you have to have good map knowledge and a good understanding of where the fight will take place and how it will progress, as well as the mechanical skills to aim etc.
If you're not using the range advantage they have i.e. If you're mostly fighting inside ERML range, then you might consider swapping the ERLLs for large pulse lasers. They have shorter range but MUCH shorter beam duration, which makes it easier to apply all of their damage to a target, or (ideally) to a single component of a target. Customising your mech will cost Cbills, particularly as a new player when you don't have a stockpile of weapons to swap in, but might be worth it. More on that shortly.
The stock SCR-B has six ERML in the right arm. The B right arm omnipods has negative quirks for beam duration, so similarly to the ERLL in the prime (although to a lesser extent) if you aren't able to hold them in your target you're going to miss out on a lot of damage. Firing all of them at once is also going to generate a LOT of heat: are you shutting down in combat a lot? There is the option to chain fire, but in general, you're better off using group fire as it concentrates your damage.
THREE QUICK TIPS
1. I'm going to link to builds on a website called Smurfy's, which you may already have come across. If you can, always experiment with builds on Smurfy before you start making changes in the real in game Mechlab. You can do all of the same things you can do in the game, with no risk of accidentally spending your cbills. You can also make a build, generate a link and post it here in the forums to ask others what they think -- particularly here in the new player section, people will be happy to discuss your build and how well it's likely to work/what the drawbacks might be!
2. Strip your mechs of equipment (not armour!) when you're not using them. Re-using the weapons (and engines, for non-omnimechs) from the mechs you're not playing right now in the mechs you ARE playing can be a very useful way to reduce expenditure, particularly early on. Even now, after a more than years' play and with many many (many!) mechs and items of equipment purchased, I strip the mechs I'm not using of components.
3. Don't sell anything! You only get half the value -- its generally better to hang on to "spares" unless you've got waaaay more of them than you'll ever need.
BUILDS
One thing you might consider is customising the builds of your prime and your B. To keep costs to a minimum, I'm going to suggest some tweaks that don't require you to purchase new omnipods.
Here are the builds:
SCR-PRIME 2LPL 3ERML and
SCR-B UAC20 4ERML
For the prime, I've replaced the ERLL with LPL, removing a couple of heat sinks. This *does* make it hotter, and if you struggle with it, you could remove the head ERML and add an extra heatsink (
SCR-PRIME 2LPL 2ERML). In general, you fire only the LPLs when your target is between 700m and 400m. Once a target around 400m or less, you can also include the ERMLs if you have the heat capacity available. Configuring the Prime like this should cost 700,000 Cbills (the cost of two large pulse lasers).
Group your weapons so you have the LPLs in one weapon group and the ERMLs in another. If you're playing with armlock disabled then you might consider a third weapon group with the two arm-mounted ERMLs assigned to it.
For the SCR-B, I've removed two of the ERML to leave four. Again, this will still be hot (although not as hot as the stock loadout) and you could consider removing another ERML and adding a heatsink (
SCR-B UAC20 3ERML). I also moved the ammo to the cannon arm and the head (headshots are relatively rare). If you find you're surviving long enough to run out of ammo regularly, then you could sacrifice a heatsink for another ton of ammo, but I'd start low and add more ammo rather than the other way round.
If you configure the Prime first, you should have heatsinks in your inventory so the changes to the B won't cost any Cbills.
For both variants, I redistributed the armour a little. Generally speaking, armour should be front-loaded, as most of the time, you'll be facing (or at worst side-on to) the people shooting at you. Experienced players would probably strip more armour from the rear side and centre torso but I've been quite conservative here.
GENERAL
Sheesh, this is an essay. Sorry again. Quick tips:
- The Stormcrow is fast and fairly nimble, so use your speed to reposition as needed, whether to stick with your team or just to get out of sight for a second to cool off
- Torso twist! The Stormcrow has a wide torso twist range, which means you can be running for cover and still look and fire to one side; it also means you can twist to spread damage across different sections of your mech -- just be careful not to over-twist and give your enemies a free back shot.
- You might see people referring to the Stormcrow as one of the best, if not the best medium mechs. That might be true, but it doesn't make it immortal.
- If you're having trouble keeping your lasers on target, try turning down the mouse sensitivity in the settings.
Right. Wall of text ends
Edited by Ano, 16 December 2015 - 10:46 PM.
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