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[Not A Real RAbbi]

The following is kind of a long read. It's worthwhile for new players, though, before they go asking us how-to and what-about questions. NOT that we don't like to help a new player, because we certainly DO, but this might help anyhow.

Read on, forgive the long and scrolling text, and expect further information to be added in the future.

Oh, and WELCOME TO ALL NEW PLAYERS!

INTRODUCTION:

Spoiler

Maybe you know, and maybe you don't, but MWO is not even close to the first game in this fictional future universe. It all began in the 1980s with a tabletop game called BattleTech.

Now, classic BattleTech (BT) had a few standard battlemechs that one could choose from to play. More were added in Technical Readouts over the years. We were first introduced to the Inner Sphere of the year 3025, and moved forward in increments through the Clan invasion, the Jihad, and so on, well into the 32nd Century. MWO currently resides somewhere in the 3050-3051 part of that universe's timeline, during the Clan invasion.

MWO began in the BT universe's year 3049, with all the technology that was available in the canon and lore to the Inner Sphere at that time. It has come a long way from then, over the course of well more than three years, from closed beta to open beta to release, and now through the Steam release. Each successive iteration has seen an influx of new players to the game, and the game has changed considerably along the way.

One thing that is in short supply in MWO, is formal instruction on most aspects of the game. That has fallen largely on the community, and some of us take it as a personal responsibility to help new players get into the game. This game has a pretty steep learning curve, at least partially because there is so much to it besides merely playing matches. One of those things is mech design and building.

And that is where this guide is intended to fit in. You see, a mech in this game can be outfitted in a nearly infinite number of different configurations of engines, armor, weapons, and other equipment. While there are some agreed-upon best practices, and some very common builds of certain mechs, it is still up to each player to decide how best to outfit his or her mechs. The one caveat being, that leaving a mech in its stock configuration, as delivered from the store, is almost always a bad idea for anyone wanting a positive gaming experience in MWO.

One simply must outfit his or her mech with improved equipment, deadlier weapons, faster engines, and so on. But again, there is no formal guidance for a new player on how to do so. The developers of this game are quite busy with trying to maintain game balance, implement new content, and further promote the game to prospective new players, and the community resource exists as a great source of information for incoming new players.

So, this guide is intended to help new, incoming players, to understand what different parts of a mech do, and how to decide how best to outfit a mech. It will not go into the specific details of using the Mech Lab UI itself, however. There are other guides and videos for that purpose already.

Please read the information below, leave any feedback you may have, and enjoy a very fun and challenging Free-to-Play game!

For starters...

Spoiler

Beginner’s Guide to Mech Construction and Modification

The purpose of this informal guide is to give beginning players a basic understanding of how mechs are constructed, and how they may be modified in the Mech Lab.

But, what is a mech? Well, it’s a big stompy robot with weapons and stuff. Duh, right? But there are different types of mechs, and this affects how they are built and modified in MWO.

Battlemechs differ from omnimechs in a few significant ways. When talking about one or the other specifically, we will use the specific term. When talking about generalities that apply to both, we will use the term “mech”.

A battlemech may be more extensively modified, but has fixed hard points in any variant. That is, if you have a battlemech with no ECM hard point, there is no way to mount an ECM in that mech under any circumstances. If it has a ballistic ( hard point in its right arm, and only that hard point, then there is no way to mount an energy (E) or missile (M) weapon in that arm.

Omnimechs are different. They have fixed equipment which cannot be moved, such as their engines. They have ‘omnipods’ in their components (arms, legs, three torso segments, and head) that can be interchanged between variants of the same chassis, and those omnipods determine what hard points exist in those components. Some omnipods contain fixed equipment, too. For instance, consider the Timber Wolf Clan omnimech. The TBR-S variant is equipped with locked jump jets in its side torso omnipods (2 in each) and its center torso (1). ANY Timber Wolf omnimech, therefore, may equip jump jets by equipping one of the Timber Wolf side torso omnipods. The locked equipment still weighs whatever it weighs, and takes up whatever critical space it does, though. While omnimechs allow for a greater variety of weapons and equipment loadouts, they limit the mechwarrior by allowing only exactly ONE engine size and type to be installed, and often further limit the mechwarrior with locked heat sinks that cannot be removed. Also, omnimechs do not allow modification of internal structure, armor type, and heat sink type.

So, what ARE all these things? Well, think of a mech as being like a human body. It’s not tough, since the human body was the overall model for the first mechs (IIRC, originally used for outer space mining). The human body has a skeleton, muscles, a brain, numerous internal organs that provide energy and expel waste, and skin to protect it all. So does every mech.

The skeleton is the mech’s Internal Structure (IS, not to be confused with Inner Sphere). This has a fixed weight based on the mech’s planned max weight. There are two types of IS: Standard and Endo-Steel. The Endo-Steel stuff is more expensive, and takes up additional critical space inside the mech (14 slots for IS, 7 slots for Clan). ALL other components and equipment mount to the mech’s IS.

The skin of a mech is its armor. Armor has a fixed value per ton. Again, there are two types currently deployed in MWO: Standard and Ferro-Fibrous. The latter, FF, gives more points per ton than does the former, and again costs extra critical space inside the mech (14 slots for IS, 7 for Clan). A mech may forego armor on any given component, and the amount of armor per location on a mech is adjustable from 0 to a maximum number of points that is based on the mech’s planned max weight. Each component has a different max armor value, except for a mech’s head; ALL mech heads are able to mount up to 18 points of armor.

The brain of a mech is the mechwarrior, of course. That said, the mechwarrior needs a cockpit and life support equipment, and the mech itself needs sensors (mimicking the human sensory organs) to provide necessary information to its ‘brain’. These components all reside in the mech’s head, and occupy five of its six critical slots. They may not be moved or modified in MWO at this time, and are fixed equipment in all mech types.

The guts of the mech are its engine and gyroscope. The engine is a portable fusion powerplant that provides a relatively enormous electrical current potential. This MUST be mounted in the Center Torso (CT) of the mech. There are two types of engine: Standard and eXtra-Light. XL engines weigh considerably less than standard engines, but take up more critical spaces split evenly between the two side torso components (6 for IS, 4 for Clan). The engine is replaceable equipment in IS and Clan battlemechs, and fixed equipment in Clan omnimechs. That is, Clan omnimechs MAY NOT exchange engines to increase performance or available weight, but Clan and IS battlemechs may. The gyro takes up 4 critical slots in the mech’s CT, and is fixed equipment in all mechs.

And the mech has to have muscles. In this case, that’s the mech’s actuators. There is only one type of actuators, and they are more-or-less fixed equipment. Some battlemechs do not have lower arm or hand actuators, and that is a fixed configuration for that variant. Some omnimechs’ arm omnipods have OPTIONAL lower arm and hand actuators, and those may be installed or removed at the player’s discretion in Mech Lab, at NO COST to the player.
Beyond the above items, a mech must have at least one weapon to be in a valid configuration for a match. The number and types of weapons that a mech can mount, are determined first by its available hard points.

Think of hard points as representing the basic chassis/variant layout with respect to ammunition handling and high-current electrical conduits. Sure, you can hang a large laser in a certain place if you really WANT to, but without a heavy enough power conduit to provide it ample electrical power to FIRE, it’s just going to sit there and take up space. Alternately, you can weld a long-range missile launcher on the mech’s head if you like. But without the internal capability to pass missile ammunition through the head to that launcher, it will be a big waste of weight and space. If you’ve ever seen the Ammunition Handling System of the AH-64 Apache (I know I have), then you know exactly what I mean. SO, the every battlemech’s individual variants are built in the factory to accommodate certain types of weapons and equipment in certain locations, and that’s all.

Along come the omnimechs, though, and have the hard points assigned by these interchangeable omnipods. It’s like being able to quickly swap the missile arms from a CPLT-A1 onto your CPLT-K2, in place of its energy weapons arms, so you can tack LRMs onto it with your twin AC/2s for a long-range specialist. And then, go back to the Mech Lab and put it all back the other way again. All at your whim, really.

You might think that this means a slam-dunk for omnimechs, but so far the IS battlemechs have benefitted FAR more greatly from a quirk system. That was originally implemented to make a certain few mechs stand out, and has since been applied to a few iterations of mech balancing. It’s meant to reflect the specialization of battlemechs to their intended roles, and the specialized design of each variant versus the omnimechs’ more interchangeable, generalist design. There are numerous opinions, pro and con, on whether this approach is working well, and we will avoid that sub-topic here.

CRITICAL SPACE! This is the room left INSIDE the mech for mounting weapons, ammunition, additional heat sinks, and other specialized equipment. The more you have available, all else being equal, the more or bigger things you can fit into your mech.

Every weapon in the mech lab, as well as every piece of other equipment that can be mounted (except modules, which take ZERO space, and are considered negligible in space/weight), has a value under the ‘SLOTS’ column in the Mech Lab. That indicates how many critical slots that item occupies.

Every mech has a beginning total of 6 slots in each leg and head, and 12 in each arm and torso component. The head loses five of those slots to fixed equipment, and the CT loses 10 (engine and gyro). The arms each lose 2-4, depending on what actuators are installed. The legs lose 4 each to actuators. Beyond that, mounting an XL engine can take 4-6 additional side torso slots, and FF armor and Endo-Steel structure can take up 7 or 14 more slots each (depending on the technology base of the MECH itself—Clan and IS tech cannot be mixed on any mech at this time).

So, you start with ((6*3)+(12*5)=78, 78-5-10-(4*2)-(3*2)=49) forty-nine slots, give or take, that can be used for equipment. (I used 3 for each arm, as an average number. Some mechs will have 4 slots occupied with actuators, some will only have 2, and some will have optionally 2, 3, or 4.)

Now, having installed all of that, you still need to determine if you want FF armor, endo steel IS, and/or an XL engine. If you’re using Inner Sphere tech, that’s (49-14-14-6=15) fifteen critical slots left for weapons, equipment, and ammunition. For Clan tech, that’s (49-7-7-4=31) thirty-one slots available for the same. And remember, if it’s a Clan omnimech, those decisions are already made for you, and if installed they are FIXED equipment that cannot be changed by the player.

Also keep in mind that FF armor and Endo Steel structure will occupy critical slots, but they’re called “Dynamic” in the Mech Lab for a reason. Those slots may be allocated ANYWHERE within the mech; they need not be in contiguous locations at all, so long as they are allocated. Mech Lab will automatically assign the critical slots within the mech for these, but if you want to place something in a location that has a dynamic slot allocated to armor or structure, as long as there is ample room SOMEWHERE else in the mech, Mech Lab will allow it and automatically move the armor and/or structure when you place the item.

WEIGHT! It’s every inch as important as critical space. Every component of a mech, that can be installed/removed at the player’s discretion, has weight. The sum of all these weights, as well as the weight of the mech’s structure, can amount to a total not exceeding the mech’s maximum weight. For all Timber Wolf mechs, for instance, that is 75 tons. For a Firestarter, that is 35 tons. 20 for a Locust, 100 for a Dire Wolf, and so on. That maximum weight CAN NOT be exceeded by the player, not even by a single tenth of a ton. The mech MAY weigh less, at the player’s discretion, but this is not advised and will not yield any benefit at all.

First, the structure and all fixed components of even the simplest battlemechs all have weight. Go into the Mech Lab and strip all of the equipment and armor from your mech. If that mech is a stock HBK-4G Hunchback, then with nothing but structure and fixed equipment, it will weigh 5.0 tons. That is, the structure and fixed equipment (cockpit, gyro, life support, sensors, and actuators) combine to a total of 5.0 tons, leaving 45 tons available for other equipment. Already, we can change the structure type from Standard to Endo-Steel and see a 50% reduction in the mech’s overall weight, from 5.0 to 2.5 tons.

Next, install the maximum armor value, 338 points for a 50-ton mech (32 per arm, 18 head, 48 per leg, 64 total CT (front AND back are separate), and 48 total per side torso (front and back are separate, again, like with CT). In this case, it weighs 10.6 tons. If we change that to Ferro-Fibrous armor, it now weighs 9.4 tons for the same amount of armor protection. NOTE: Given the choice of only FF or Endo-Steel, most mechwarriors choose the latter—it gives a higher weight savings for the same sacrifice of critical space, and is therefore a greater overall benefit.

Now, install the mech’s engine. In this case, the stock HBK-4G comes with a 200 Standard engine. That engine weighs 11.5 tons, and takes up only 6 critical slots in the CT. If we opt instead for an XL 200 engine, the weight drops to 7.5 tons (a 4-ton savings, at the expense of those extra 6 critical slots). Another way of looking at it is, that we can maintain the same engine WEIGHT but get a higher rating with an XL. There isn’t an XL engine that weighs 11.5 tons, so the closest one is the XL 245 at 11.0 tons even. That bumps up the mech’s top speed to 79.4 km/h, compared to its stock 64.8 km/h with the 200-rated engine.

Now, there is something important to know about engines and heat sinks. Every engine contains SOME heat sinks. Divide the engine’s rating by 25, and that is the engine’s maximum INTERNAL heat sink capacity. The first heat sinks up to a total of ten (10) are FREE, both in terms of weight AND space. Also, a valid mech configuration for battle MUST have at least ten (10) heat sinks, whether they are internal to the engine or not. SO, a 250 engine might be only a little bit faster than a 245, but it also contains an tenth heat sink. Though it’s 1.5 tons heavier, the lighter engine also requires at least one more heat sink be installed OUTSIDE the engine before it is a valid configuration for battle. The difference, therefore, is only truly 0.5 tons, and the heavier engine takes less space for that reason.

For engines rated 275 or higher, each additional 25-ton internal heat sink is empty (the engine comes with only up to ten built-in), but the capacity is within the engine to hold the additional heat sinks. Consider the 300XL, which is one of the game’s best and most versatile. It comes with 10 internal heat sinks, but it can HOLD up to twelve (300/25=12). If you equip the extra two heat sinks, you MAY put them inside the engine as well. You will still be stuck with the extra 1.0 ton per heat sink, but you need not sacrifice the additional critical space to mount them.

For our example HBK-4G, we must mount at least two heat sinks outside the engine. There are two different kinds of heat sinks: Single and Double. INSIDE the engine, a single heat sink has the same capacity as outside, but a DOUBLE heat sink… well, you get the point. Outside the engine, the doubles do significantly less work than inside, but are still more efficient at heat removal than are the singles. Double heat sinks also take up more space (3 critical slots IS, 2 critical slots Clan) than singles (1 critical slot IS or Clan). Also, single heat sinks mounted in the mech’s LEGS can cool more efficiently if those legs are submerged in water, but this is not common in MWO at this time, and it is therefore not advisable to prefer singles over doubles for this reason. In fact, virtually EVERY mech in this game is better served by double heat sinks than by singles.

Now, it’s time to decide on the weapons layout. For the HBK-4G, we have few options. There are energy weapons hard points in the arms (1 each) and head (1), and ballistic weapons hard points in the right torso (3). That is all. If we wanted to mount missiles on a Hunchback, we picked the wrong variant (HBK-4J, -4SP, or –GI, are the only IS HBK variants capable of carrying missiles at all). Let us consider the stock configuration of this battlemech. This configuration mounts medium lasers (ML) in each arm, and a small laser (SL) in the head. It also mounts an Autocannon/20 (AC/20) in the right torso, and two tons of ammunition for that autocannon in the left torso. Finally, it carries five (5) heat sinks external to the engine (in addition to the engine’s built-in 8), two in each leg and one in the CT. It sacrifices 8 points of armor in each leg, and another 2 in the CT. Were we so inclined, we could remove the AC/20 from the RT and replace it with up to 3 other ballistic weapons, so long as their weight and critical space would fit.

So, let us do just that. By removing the AC/20 and ammo, and replacing it with a Gauss rifle, we can lower the mech’s total heat. That, in turn, would allow us to remove some of the additional heat sinks to make room for more ammo, heavier energy weapons, or a faster engine. Doing so, you will notice, greatly increases the mech’s heat efficiency number. That means that the mech can fire continuously for a longer time before overheating.

When we change the heat sinks to doubles, and add Endo-Steel internal structure, we can free up even more weight. Using that additional weight, we can add back two double heat sinks (for a total of 10) to be still more heat efficient than we were before with a greater number of singles. And we can then change the three lasers to all medium pulse lasers (MPL), and carry a total of three (3) tons of Gauss ammo. This configuration is considerably more heat efficient than stock, and has a longer effective range for its primary weapon. But it is still SLOW.

If we then exchange the STD 200 engine for an XL 225, our top speed jumps to 72.9 km/h and we gain 1.5 tons of free weight. Also, the higher engine rating means an additional ninth double heat sink is now included in the engine’s weight and space, so we may remove one of the doubles for yet more free weight and space. Using that, we can install an Anti-Missile System (AMS) in the LT, and a ton of AMS ammo in the CT or one of the legs. Further, we can add the last bit of armor to CT, and all but one point to each of the legs, making the mech a little more survivable.

What are some things we cannot do? Well, we cannot install ECM in this mech. There are a limited few mechs that are capable of carrying ECM. Consider that the ECM system is, first and foremost, a JAMMING system. The carrying mech, therefore, must be immune to its own jamming, first and foremost. And it is a POWERFUL system at that. So, the mech carrying it must be relatively specialized for that task, with addiional steps taken early in its design to ensure that it may do so reliably without harming its own other systems.

Battlemechs CAN NOT mount equipment for which they have no hard points. Omnimechs must have an appropriate hard point in one of their omnipods, in order to mount a piece of equipment. If an omnipod is not available for your omnimech to support that equipment, then it simply cannot be mounted. For instance, only one variant of the Arctic Cheetah carries ECM, but that omnipod can be transferred to ANY Arctic Cheetah, making ANY Arctic Cheetah on the battlefield a potential ECM-carrier. On the other hand, there is no ECM omnipod for the Storm Crow, so no matter which SCR variant or omnipod you purchase, you can never mount ECM on one.

IMPORTANT ENGINE CONSIDERATIONS:

Spoiler

Your mech's engine rating and weight determine its maximum running speed. The system is still based on the old tabletop BattleTech game, which used movement points determined by the ratio of a mech's engine rating to its maximum weight. For example, our HBK-4G weighed 50 tons and had a 200-rated engine. That gave it a walking value of 4, and a running (maximum) value of six (4*1.5=6). That is, it could spend up to six movement points in a single turn. In the event that the resulting product was not an integer, it was rounded up to the next integer. Consider the Ebon Jaguar, with its 325 XL engine and 65-ton weight. That yields a walking MP value of 5, but that would give a running MP of 7.5. So, the 7.5 is rounded up to 8.

We have moved on to real-time simulation of that movement with MWO, but the same movement rate still applies in terms of maximum walking and running movement rates. But where BattleTech allowed no increments but integer values, we have the opportunity to use increments of 5 in engine ratings and realize the incrementally-increasing maximum forward speeds.

To determine your mech's maximum forward speed with a given engine rating, first divide the engine rating by the mech's maximum weight. Then, multiply THAT number by 16.2, and the resulting product is the mech's MAXIMUM RUNNING speed in kilometers per hour. So, the HBK-4G can be built with a 200 engine for a maximum forward running speed of 64.8 km/h (200/50*16.2=64.8). If we change the engine to a 225 rating, the speed increases to 72.9 km/h, more than 8 km/h faster than stock for a relatively small increase in engine weight.

Additional information concerning Standard and eXtra Light (XL) engines:

Spoiler

Standard and XL engines

So, there is more drawback to an XL engine that merely taking up additional torso critical hit slots. That IS, in itself, a big drawback for some larger mechs; an AC/20 cannot be mounted in the side torso of a mech with an XL engine, as there is simply not enough space for both.

Also, an engine is considered destroyed if THREE critical slots worth of it are destroyed. One way to destroy equipment, of course, is to destroy the location in which that equipment is installed. And since IS XL engines take up three (3) critical slots in each side torso, destroying either side torso will destroy the mech’s XL engine, and thereby destroy the mech.

On the other hand, Standard engines are considerably heavier than XLs. Consider again, the incredibly popular 300-rated engines. If you’re building a JR7-D Jenner, which is a fine first battlemech, 300 is the highest engine rating it can support. But that STD 300 engine weighs 25 tons, and the mech itself has a max weight of 35 tons. That is, the engine alone takes all but 10 tons of the mech, and we still have armor and internal structure to consider. In fact, it is impossible to fit a STD 300 engine in the JR7 chassis with maximum armor without upgrading to FF or Endo-Steel. Even with both upgrades, the STD 300 leaves only 1.35 tons for weapons and other equipment. Change that to the XL 300, though and you still have over 10.5 tons available for weapons and equipment. For a fast light mech, XL engines are an absolute requirement.

Now, consider our previous example of the HBK-4G. The Hunchback is notorious for ‘squishy’ (that is, easily destroyed) side torso components. While a relatively powerful HBK build is possible with an XL engine, it is also vulnerable to quick destruction because of the susceptibility of those side torso components to destruction. Let us revisit that mech.

If we consider the stock HBK-4G loadout, and then add Endo-Steel structure and double heat sinks, we notice a couple of things immediately. First, even losing 7 of the single heat sinks, we have higher heat efficiency. But that’s another topic. We also see a weight savings of 5.5 tons (after adding back 2 external double heat sinks, to the minimum of 10). Let us leave ONE internal double heat sink installed, change the head-mounted small laser to a medium laser, add two tons of AC/20 ammo, and remove the STD 200 engine. We now have 15.5 tons available for an engine, which perfectly accommodates a STD 230 engine. The 230 engine requires only one external heat sink, which we have installed. We now have a more reasonable ammo load of 28 rounds (7 rounds per ton for IS-tech AC/20), and our mech’s top speed has increased by roughly 10 km/h without sacrificing survivability. And if we’re married to the Gauss rifle of the previous example, we could swap the AC/20 and 4 tons of ammo, for a Gauss rifle and 3 tons (10 rounds per ton) of ammo, gaining two more shots and more than doubling the effective range of our primary weapon. Certainly, the mech could go faster with an XL engine, and it could accommodate that AND the Gauss rifle. But then, between the Gauss rifle’s tendency to explode when hit critically and the ‘squishy’ side torso components, it would be best to stick with a slower STD engine.

Some mechs are better suited to XL engines than others. For instance, the CPLT chassis, or Catapult. This is a classic IS-tech battlemech that was among the game’s first few. Looking at the mech, we see less well-defined side and center torso components. So does an enemy targeting that mech. It is considerably easier to spread torso damage in a CPLT (a concept that will not be discussed here, but that is covered in EXCELLENT detail in the Guides & Strategies forum by Kanajashi’s cadet video tutorials), and the side torso hit boxes are relatively small, so that chassis lends itself better to using an XL engine. Again, though, this is not feasible for those wanting to build the “Boom Cat” CPLT-K2 with AC/20, as an XL engine leaves insufficient room in either side torso for that weapon’s required 10 critical slots. The “Gauss Cat”, however, is still feasible. But again, great care must be taken to spread damage, as placing a Gauss rifle in a side torso with an IS-tech XL engine can be a recipe for disaster—if the weapon is destroyed by critical hit, even if internal structure remains, it will explode similarly to ammunition, and likely destroy the remainder of the side torso AND the XL engine, effectively destroying the mech.

With the release of the Clan Origins II-C battlemechs, we finally have Clan tech that can be modified similarly to IS-tech battlemechs. Most importantly to this discussion, we have mechs that can swap different sized engines. There is far less down side to the Clan battlemechs running XL engines, though. Recall, that an engine must have THREE (3) critical slots or more destroyed before it is itself considered destroyed. And recall that Clan XL engines only occupy TWO (2) critical slots per side torso. One could destroy an XL-equipped Clan battlemech’s right torso, and that mech will be able to continue the fight (unlike an IS-tech battlemech with an XL engine, which would be destroyed). Losing that single side torso costs the mech 20% of its performance (speed, turn rate, etc), but it may still fight. It is therefore scarcely worth considering installing an XL engine in a Clan battlemech.

And again, Clan omnimechs’ engines are locked equipment, and may not be altered. They may not even be removed for installation in other Clan mechs.

In summary, the choice of Standard or XL engine affects not only the available weight and space within the mech, but also its survivability. Each player must decide for himself/herself which engine type to use, giving consideration to the requirements for speed, weaponry, and survivability.

HEAT, HEAT SINKS, and YOU

Spoiler

So, every thing that a mech does, creates heat. Namely, movement and weapons firing create heat. Your mech is a fairly delicate machine on the inside, and heat is very bad for it. It’s kind of like a computer, and if it were real then it would contain a lot of microprocessors and wiring. For reference, an AH-64D Longbow Apache helicopter weighs less than ten (10) tons loaded, and carries 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) or more of electrical wires. And it doesn’t have the ridiculously complex myomer actuators that your mech has, and it doesn’t have those stupidly hot energy weapons either. And that monster STILL has to carry TWO eleven (11) pound R-134a vapor cycle cooling systems (VCCS) to keep the electronics cooled down. (Ask me why I have a Universal refrigerant technician license from the EPA. G’head. I dare ya.)

So, HEAT = BAD. More stuff means more heat. And you’ve got to get that heat back out of your mech, in order for the mech to be useful. Along come heat sinks!

First, there are two types of heat sinks: Single, and Double. Each has different cooling characteristics, depending on how it is installed in a mech. And there are differences between Clan and Inner Sphere Double Heat Sinks. Oh, and any heat sinks installed in a component, which is then submerged in water, cools even more efficiently.

First, we’ve seen before that every mech has a requirement to have at least ten (10) heat sinks installed in order to be valid for a match. IF some of those heat sinks are destroyed in the match, though, the mech may continue to function. But ten heat sinks is the minimum, regardless of the type (single or double).

Next, we must consider that every engine will contain heat sinks. The type depends on what type are installed in the mech, and it takes no effort or cost on the player’s part to change the heat sinks in the engine, when switching engines between mechs. Say you have a pair of Locusts, an LCT-1V and LCT-3M. The -1V has single heat sinks, and the -3M has doubles, and you can only afford a single XL 190 engine right now to share between the two mechs. If you install that engine in the -1V, it will automatically take on single heat sinks. If you then remove it from the -1V and install in the -3M, it will automatically change to doubles, at no cost to you and with no additional effort on your part.

Every mech’s engine can hold a set number of heat sinks. Divide the engine rating by 25, rounding down to the integer, and that is how many heat sinks it may contain at maximum. Up to TEN heat sinks are already included in the engine’s weight, or fewer if the engine is rated below 250. If the engine is rated 275 or higher, the engine MAY hold additional heat sinks, at no additional critical space requirements, up to its maximum capacity. Those additional heat sinks beyond the first ten (10), however, will still have their weight counted against the mech’s max.

Now, single heat sinks weigh one ton and take up one critical space. Inner Sphere (IS) double heat sinks (DHS) weight one ton, but take up three critical slots. Clan DHS weigh one ton, and take up two critical slots.

It is important to reiterate, that there is virtually NO situation in which it is ideal to retain single heat sinks. It may not be necessary on many builds of the LCT-1V to install DHS, but it is still a worthwhile measure.

Now, there are circumstances under which heat sinks may remove heat at an increased rate. That is, when the heat sinks’ component is submerged in water. Most maps do not have water deep enough to submerge significant portions of a mech’s torso, but many do have water at least deep enough to submerge part or all of a mech’s legs. Single heat sinks, and Clan DHS, can fit in a leg if there is no other equipment already occupying those critical slots. As there are only two (2) available critical slots at most in a mech’s legs, though, it is impossible to install an IS DHS in a leg. This is not a HUGE consideration, since it is fairly infrequent that a mech will have cause to be in even ankle-deep water. However, if there is no further room in the mech’s engine, and no important equipment occupies its legs, then it may be ideal to place any additional external heat sinks in the legs, in case the mech DOES enter water.

But heat sinks placed within the mech’s engine also cool more efficiently than outside, and about as efficiently as those in submerged components. If your mech has space for another heat sink in the engine, then that is almost always the best place to install the next heat sink. Unless you are planning to use the heat sink for ‘crit-padding’, and the heat efficiency of the mech is already sufficient, the engine should be filled first.

Now for some observations. Refer to the linked document, which should be available for public viewing on Google.

This experiment was conducted on December 25^th, 2015, in the live MWO client with the current patch (as of that date) installed. Three mechs were used. First, an IS JR7-D(S) and Clan ACH-PRIME(I) were each outfitted with a single ERPPC and one external DHS, with an engine accommodating 9 internal DHS. The Jenner was outfitted with its maximum of 5 jump jets, compared to the Arctic Cheetah’s 6 jump jets. Nontheless, their performances should be relatively equal. These two were each measured on Alpine Peaks (cold map), Crimson Strait (moderate temperature map), and Caustic Valley (hot map). Two passes were accomplished in Caustic Valley; one outside the caldera, and one completely inside of it. For each mech, heat was measured as the highest displayed percentage of capacity on the mech’s HUD. Heat was measured standing still, then walking (~50% of max forward speed), and then running, and then at maximum jump height. After that, I took three measurements of max heat after a single shot from a standstill and resting heat. I repeated the process again, but with the mech at a run (100% forward speed). In each case, I recorded three observations, and then recorded the average of the three. I allowed at least three seconds after the temperature stabilized after each shot, before I fired again. Finally, I recorded a time-to-overheat (TTO). The TTO measurement is in seconds, beginning with a full forward throttle command AND holding down the fire key for the sole weapon, an ERPPC. The ERPPC was chosen, because both Clan and IS ERPPCs have the same heat and cooldown values, and neither of the mechs used has any quirks applicable to energy weapons. Also, both mechs are MASTERed, so double BASIC skills are unlocked (Heat Containment and Cool Run, specifically), as well as the ELITE-level Fast Fire skill (reduces all weapon cooldown times).

The results, however, tell us very little. All of the recorded observations for both mechs were nearly identical. Only on the very hottest run, in the caldera on Caustic Valley, did we see any measurable difference between the two mechs (the JR7-D(S) was cooler firing, but about 1% of max heat, which isn’t truly statistically significant). TTO for both mechs was identical.

Next, we considered three different builds of the recently-released JR7-IIC-3. First was with a 300XL engine, 10 DHS (10 internal to the engine, none external), six (6) jump jets, and a single ERPPC. The mech was then reconfigured with a 200XL engine, with 10 DHS (8 internal, 2 external), and otherwise identical equipment. The DHS were installed in the side torso components, one in each. And finally, I repeated part of the sample with the 200XL configuration, moving the DHS to the legs and leaving the mech otherwise the same. Both configurations with the 200XL were run through the same tests in shallow water on Crimson Strait (unfortunately, there is no water there that can support fully submerging a JR7 chassis, Clan or IS). These results clearly underscored the value of heat sink positioning within the mech.

First, comparing the XL300 configuration to the XL200, we see that the XL200 was consistently 1-2% higher in heat on more than half of the observations. That is not significant in itself, but the TTO was 4 seconds shorter on all four tests for the XL200. That is, it was capable of exactly one more shot of that ERPPC before overheating (the ERPPC has a four-second cooldown time without skills or quirks). But the water test was most striking of all. The XL200 configuration manages TWO more shots of the ERPPC with the heat sinks leg-mounted, than with them torso-mounted. That also means that it could fire more than the XL300 configuration, with the DHS mounted within the engine. That configuration ran consistently cooler in firing tests, than either of the other two. It beat the others by 5-6% in displayed heat in firing tests, and by four and eight seconds (one and two shots of the ERPPC). Interesting, and possibly anomalous, is that the leg-mount JR7 was even cooler while JUMPING, which removes the legs from the water and SHOULD thus nullify the submerged-heat-sink bonus.

The results support the game developers’ assertions, therefore, that heat sinks mounted inside the engine are more efficient than those outside of it, and those mounted in components that are then submerged in water, are more efficient yet while submerged.

And seeing all that, I summarize as follows: Any heat sinks that may be mounted inside an engine, should be. Those that cannot be mounted inside an engine, are best mounted in the legs if possible. Only once those two possibilities have been eliminated, should the player then consider using heat sinks as crit pads (a topic for later) in other locations.

The Mech Lab shows you a heat efficiency number for your mech, based on the current configuration show in the lab (even if it has not yet been saved). Each player will have a different comfort zone with that number, but 1.3 or higher is generally safe for newer players, assuming no ‘ghost heat’ (which will be discussed later). Any lower number than that, and the build may need more heat sinks, or the player may need to exercise caution to not fire all weapons together (‘alpha strike’) often. Any higher than 1.4, and it may be worth removing a heat sink (if possible) to add ammunition, armor, more weapons, or other equipment.

Ammunition, Gauss Rifles, and Locating Equipment in Components

Spoiler

If you haven’t already learned this, ammunition CAN explode when critically hit, doing considerable damage to the mech. Gauss ammo doesn’t explode, but Gauss rifles MAY (similarly to ammo). An ammo explosion is almost always a death sentence for the component in which it occurs. And if it destroys that component with leftover damage, then THAT damage transfers inward to the next component. Arms and legs transfer excess damage to the side torso on their side, and the side torsos transfer to the center torso.

Recall that any equipment in a destroyed component is itself destroyed, regardless of its prior condition. This includes one of the most important design considerations, the extended XL engine slots in the side torso segments. And recall especially, that destroying 3 critical slots of an engine, destroys the engine itself. In the case of a Clan XL engine, that would require destroying both side torso components. For IS XL engines, though, losing a single side torso destroys the entire engine, also destroying the mech.

First, the Gauss rifle. It is a heavy weapon, weighing in at 15 tons for IS tech and 12 tons for Clan. That leads many into temptation to install XL engines, in order that they may build Gauss platforms that aren’t too slow. But if the Gauss rifle must be installed in the side torso, this is considered a very bad idea on most mechs (the CPLT-K2 ‘Gauss Cat’ is a notable exception, as the side torso components are smaller and harder to single out, helping the XL engine survive longer). According to Smurfy, THE mech builder’s reference for MWO, the Gauss rifle has a health of 5.00 HP (if hit critically for 5 points of damage or more, it will be destroyed), and has a 90% chance to explode if destroyed by critical hit. That explosion produces an additional 20 points of damage to the internal structure of the component it is installed in, and that damage also may transfer if it exceeds the remaining structure value in that component.

No other weapon is potentially explosive, like the Gauss rifle, but all ballistic and missile weapons (including machine guns, NARC beacons, and even anti-missile systems) require ammunition. And ammunition destroyed by critical hit has a chance to explode, except for Gauss ammo. In the event that ammunition is destroyed, it does damage equal to the maximum damage value of all the rounds remaining in that location. For instance, if a one-ton bin of AC/20 ammunition is destroyed, it may do 140 points of damage (20 damage per round, times 7 rounds per ton; 20*7=140). If there are only three rounds remaining in that location, then it will do 60 points of damage (3*20=60). Each critical slot of ammunition, whether a half-ton or a ton, is its own segment, and its ammunition should be counted individually from any other ammunition stored in that same component, even if they appear to be contiguous on the mech in Mech Lab.

No other equipment can explode, though. Consider that, if a weapon hits an unarmored location on a target mech, it has a chance to cause critical damage. To which slot, though? That’s random. That said, the more non-explosive critical slots that exist in a location, the lower chance that something explosive will be hit. Say you have an arm on your mech, with only three tons of ammunition and one IS double heat sink in it. Each ammunition ton occupies one slot, and the DHS occupies three more itself, for six total slots. Further, your mech has all four actuators in that arm (shoulder, upper arm, lower arm, and hand). So, of the ten filled slots, three are explosive. There is a 30% chance that explosive ammunition will be damaged, possibly destroying the arm. On the other hand, if you removed the DHS, you’d be left with three of seven critical slots occupied by explosive ammunition, or about a 43% chance that the ammo will take the critical damage. Say your mech also carries a Beagle Active Probe. In that case, if the probe were installed in the arm, then you have a mere 25% chance that ammo will be damaged by a critical hit.

Losing a single arm, especially if it contains no weapons or other valuable equipment, is not such a big deal. Many builds strip armor from one or both arms, to save weight for more important components, and consider the arms expendable. This topic will be covered separately. Losing a torso segment, however, can be devastating in mechs with XL engines. If it is an IS XL engine, then the mech will be destroyed. IF it is a Clan XL engine, it will not destroy the mech (as long as the other side torso is intact), but it will reduce the mech’s performance by 20% (max speed, turning rate).

So you see, mounting something as easily destructible as a Gauss rifle in a side torso, can be a recipe for disaster.

Enter Cellular Ammunition Storage Equipment, or CASE. CASE occupies one critical slot and weighs one half-ton, and it protects the rest of your mech from damage transfer from a destroyed location. ALL Clan mechs, omnimechs or battlemechs, automatically have CASE included in all of their components at no additional weight or space penalty. IS Battlemechs must equip the CASE deliberately. It is largely ineffective in IS mechs, though. If CASE is installed in a side torso, for instance, that side torso may still be completely destroyed, but any excess critical damage WILL NOT transfer inward to the CT. However, if the mech is carrying an XL engine, the mere destruction of one side torso is sufficient to destroy the engine, and thereby destroy the mech. In this case, CASE is not worth carrying. In the case of an IS mech with a STD engine, though, it may be worthwhile to protect against ammunition explosion transfer to the CT by installing CASE in the side torso components. This will protect the mech’s engine from damage or destruction from critical damage transfer, allowing the mech to remain in the fight with its surviving capabilities.

A common practice for IS battlemechs from the earliest days of MWO has been to store explosive ammunition first in the mech’s legs. In the event of an ammunition explosion there, the damage must first destroy the leg (which has a higher structure value than an arm), then transfer to the side torso, and only after destroying that, transfer to the CT. Legs are also less frequently hit, or even targeted, in most cases. (It is not unusual to sweep lasers over the legs of fast-moving light mechs, as they can be difficult to hit despite fixes to hit registration in the game.) After the legs, the single critical slot in a mech’s head is also a popular place to store ammo. The head is difficult to hit on most mechs, so despite its relatively low max armor value of 18, it is safer than a torso. After that, the two critical slots in the center torso are most often used. As the CT has more armor and structure than any other location on a mech, it is relatively safe despite being the most often-targeted component. After that, side torso or arm location of ammunition may be used, but is usually ill-advised.

Clan omnimechs are a bit different, since all components have built-in CASE. It is often best to store ammunition in the legs for Clan mechs, too. Beyond that, it may be better to store ammunition with the weapon system that uses it. In that way, if the weapon is destroyed, then the ammunition that goes with it won’t jeopardize any location other than the one containing that weapon. And if the ammunition is destroyed, it only takes that component out that contains the weapon that uses the destroyed ammo. The exception, of course, is Gauss.

Recall that Gauss ammunition is non-explosive, but Gauss rifles CAN explode. If there are any critical slots remaining in a component that contains a Gauss rifle, it is best to store the Gauss ammo there. After that, any remaining Gauss ammo to be mounted, may be used to crit-pad other locations with sensitive equipment or ammunition. If at all possible, avoid mounting Gauss rifles in side torso components on mechs with IS XL engines.

One last consideration: overheating your mech MAY cause explosive ammunition to explode. In the event that it does, that damage will be in addition to the potential damage from the overheating (always to the CT). It is rarely acceptable to overheat, but even less so in a mech that carries explosive ammunition. Mixing energy and ballistic weapons is common, but care should be taken to ensure that heat management is also up to the task of protecting your mech from overheat ammo explosions. Destruction of your mech by overheat damage, or by an ammo explosion brought on by overheating, is considered suicide in MWO, and suicide incurs a penalty to your match result.

Reminder about Clan omnimechs

Spoiler

I would like to take a moment to point out, that Clan omnimechs, as mentioned previously, typically have certain FIXED equipment and structure/armor types. Let us call the type of armor, structure, and heat sinks, the mech's modifications. Omnimechs also often have fixed equipment, that cannot be moved from its location in a given omnipod.

If, for instance, you purchase a Shadow Cat Prime (SHC-PRIME), you will notice that it is equipped with double heat sinks (DHS), Ferro-Fibrous armor (FF), and Endo-Steel internal structure (ENDO). As opposed to IS or Clan battlemechs, these modifications CANNOT be changed in a Clan omnimech. It is simply not possible to forego the FF armor in order to free space for other equipment, and even the locations of the armor's critical slots is fixed within the mech's components. That is, you cannot force ENDO slots to move to a different location, even if there is still available critical space elsewhere in the mech. Wherever those critical slots are allocated in the mech's omnipods, they will remain allocated no matter what.

Another consideration is locked equipment. Consider again, the SHC-PRIME. This mech carries six (6) jump jets, and those are locked into its omnipods. Every SHC right leg and left leg has two (2) jump jets in it, and every side torso has one(1), and they cannot be moved to any other location on the mech. They cannot be removed altogether, either. Many a player has opined (myself included) that the SHC would be considerably more lethal if it were possible to remove some of those jump jets to free some weight, but it simply is not possible.

Another example of locked equipment is the Arctic Cheetah. This Clan omnimech has an XL 240 engine, which cannot be altered. As previously discussed, this means that the engine contains nine (9) heat sinks (240/25=9.6, -> 9). Every Arctic Cheetah variant in MWO has a tenth required heat sink locked in the left torso omnipod, which cannot be moved or removed even if another heat sink is installed elsewhere in the mech. It might be favorable to mount that heat sink in a leg, for instance, but that is simply not possible.

Battlemechs, whether they be IS or Clan, may be switched between modifications at the player's discretion, though every switch will incur a cost in CBills regardless of how many times it had been performed previously. That is, if you change the structure on your HBK-4G to ENDO, you will have to pay for that. To switch it back to standard, you will have to pay again. If you subsequently change back to ENDO again, you will have to pay AGAIN. For this reason, it is HIGHLY recommended that players plan their builds first with Smurfy or Li Song Mech Lab, in order that they avoid unnecessary CBill costs in testing mech builds. (Links to those third-party mech lab applications may be found elsewhere in the TRAINING GROUNDS forum.)

Battlemechs have DYNAMIC structure and armor critical slot allocation, when using FF or ENDO. That is, slots allocated to either will move automatically when any item is installed in their location, so long as sufficient free space exists SOMEWHERE within the battlemech. For Clan battlemechs, as with Clan omnimechs, ENDO and FF take up 7 critical slots each. For IS battlemechs, the critical space cost is 14 slots each.

Also, note that single and double heat sinks are modifications, which cost CBills to swap between on a mech. That modification is fixed on Clan omnimechs, but not on Clan or IS battlemechs. If a mech is equipped with DHS, then it may ONLY install DHS. If the heat sink type is single, then ONLY single heat sinks may be installed. Heat sinks MAY NOT be mixed by type on the same mech.

Artemis IV Fire Control System is a modification that may be installed on and removed from ANY mech in the game. It incurs a significant CBill cost every time it is swapped, just like FF and ENDO and DHS. However, Artemis IV does not occupy weight or space within the mech. Rather, it affects the size, weight, and cost of non-Streak missile launchers in the mech. Artemis-enabled missile launchers are separate items from non-Artemis launchers, so changing a mech from standard to Artemis means potentially having to buy all new launchers, and Artemis-enabled launchers cost much more than standard launchers. Also, the ammunition for Artemis-enabled launchers is separate from that for standard launchers, so that will need to be purchased as well. While it weighs the same and occupies the same space, it is significantly more expensive than non-Artemis ammunition.

Artemis IV FCS is equipped on the entire battlemech, and on the omnimech's CT (for all intents and purposes). In the case of an omnimech, moving an omnipod onto a mech with Artemis automatically equips that omnipod's missile hard points (if any) for Artemis. This had previously incurred additional cost to the player, but that has been addressed recently by the game's developer. Moving an omnipod with missile hard points between Artemis and non-Artemis omnimechs no longer incurs a CBill cost.

Artemis IV FCS will be discussed in detail in a later chapter.

A LATER CHAPTER

Spoiler

As promised, here comes a brief discussion of Artemis IV Fire Control System (henceforth, simply "Artemis"). The pros and cons of Artemis are discussed in FAR greater detail in the Guides and Strategies forum, where there are numerous posts on the topics of LRMs, SRMs, and even Artemis itself. This section will cover the basic considerations for mech building, as opposed to the broader or finer points of its value in combat.

Artemis is a system developed for making missiles fire more accurately. Its practical effect in MWO is, that it makes missile groups smaller. Missiles don't all hit the exact same spot, but rather have a spread, similar to a shotgun's spread pattern, around the point at which they were fired. This is true of LRMs (guided) and SRMs (unguided), but NOT of Streak SRMs which are guided, and almost guaranteed to all hit, but follow a different procedure for determining hit locations). Artemis DOES offer some benefits for Streak SRMs, though, so it may be wise to equip any mech with Artemis, that fires only Streak SRMs as missile weapons.

First, about the missiles themselves. Short-Range Missiles, or SRMs (properly 'rockets', actually), are dumb-fired, line-of-sight weapons, which incur 2.15 damage each (IS) or 2.0 damage each (Clan), and are fired from launchers that can produce volleys of 2, 4, or 6 at a time. Both IS and Clan SRMs have a nominal maximum range of 270 meters (same for IS Streak SRMs, but Clan Streak SRMs have a max range of 330 meters). Again, with the exception of Streak types, SRMs are unguided; they must be fired directly at a target, and with a lead on moving targets.

Long-Range Missiles, or LRMs, are command-guided and do not require line-of-sight. Firing LRMs properly requires a target 'lock', which in turn requires that the firing mech, a mech friendly to the firing mech, or a UAV belonging to the firing mech's team, have line-of-sight to the target, or that the target be designated by a NARC missile beacon. Both Clan and IS LRMs do 1.0 damage per missile, and are fired from launchers with volleys of 5, 10, 15, or 20 missiles. The target lock must be maintained in order for the missiles to hit. HOWEVER, if that lock is lost, and then reacquired while the missiles are still in flight, they missiles will begin tracking the locked target again. If there is no lock when missiles are fired, they will simply fly to the point in space at which the mech's crosshairs were pointed when they fired (and in this way, they MAY be dumb-fired at a shut-down or ECM-protected target). If the lock is lost while missiles are in flight, they will continue toward the last position at which the target WAS locked, regardless of its vector in 3D space at that time. LRMs have a 1000 meter nominal max range. Further, they have a 180m minimum range. Within that range, IS LRMs will produce 0 damage on impact, and Clan LRMs will produce a greatly reduced damage.

Any missile fired will self-destruct upon reaching its maximum range (and the children thank you for not littering their home world with unexploded ordnance). Naturally, launchers with larger volley capacities will be bigger and heavier, and will have a longer 'cooldown' ('reload', if you like) period. LRMs get 180 missiles per ton of ammo, and SRMs (including Streaks) get 100 missiles per ton. Multiple launchers may be equipped on a mech, and different types (SRM, SSRM, LRM) and sizes (2, 4, or 6, or 5, 10, 15, or 20) may be equipped on the same mech. Mixing launcher sizes for the same type is often frowned upon, though, as the different cooldown times lead to inefficient use of the smaller launchers or de-synchronized firing of the lot.

One more note: Clan and IS SRMs fire identically, but their LRMs fire quite differently. IS LRMs fire like all SRMs, which is to say that the launcher fires all of its missiles at once, together, in a volley. Clan LRMs fire all of their missiles in rapid succession, in a 'stream' of missiles, if you will. Anti-Missile Systems (AMS) may be slightly more effective against Clan LRMs, therefore, than against their IS counterparts. AMS will be discussed later.

So, Artemis, you say? Sure! Consider that, with a given radius for the spread of missiles (which should be constant from 0-270m for SRMs, and 180-1000m for LRMs), if that spread is centered on a target, it is possible that some of the missiles in the spread pattern will simply not hit their target. These missiles are therefore wasted, as is the heat and cooldown time spent on firing them. If 1 of every 5 LRMs you fire misses its target, then that amounts to 36 missiles per ton of LRM ammo, or every fifth whole ton, that incurs no damage. As tonnage is at a premium in most mechs, this needs to be addressed. And that is what Artemis does.

Artemis simply tightens the spread for LRMs and SRMs. Further, when the Artemis-equipped firing mech has line-of-sight to its target, lock-on times are reduced for LRMs and Streak SRMs. So, what's the down side?

The down side is, that Artemis missile launchers (except for Streak SRMs installed in Artemis-equipped mechs) are heavier, bigger, and more expensive. Also, they require different ammunition, which is ALSO more expensive. Each Artemis-equipped launcher weighs one ton more than its non-Artemis counterpart, and weighs one ton more than its non-Artemis counterpart. Artemis-compatable ammunition gives the same number of missiles per ton. Heat and cooldown times are identical between Artemis and non-Artemis launchers.

Beyond that, there is little else to know. Deciding on Artemis or non-Artemis for a missiles-equipped mech is up to the player. One must decide if the tighter spread (and ideally, more focused damage output) is worth the additional space and weight. Typically, a missile boat would prefer Artemis launchers, and a direct-fire mech with additional missile weapons might forego Artemis. IF the mech's only missile weapons are Streak SRM launchers, however, it may be worth the price in CBills to Artemis-equip the mech--this incurs NO additional weight/space penalties, and the ammunition is no different.

Something else to consider if building a missile-carrying mech, is the Active Probe ('Beagle' Active Probe, for IS mechs). Active Probe ('AP' henceforth) reduces lock-on times, speeds target information gathering, extends maximum sensor range, and most importantly, counters enemy ECM within a short radius. Especially for mechs designed to hunt and kill enemy light mechs, the AP is a MUST-HAVE. IS AP weighs 1.5 tons and occupies 2 critical slots, and Clan AP is 1 ton and 1 slot. This is mostly required equipment for LRM mechs, too. More information on AP, ECM, and other support equipment, will follow in another installment.

To be clear, even if a launcher is cooled-down ('loaded', you might say), its ammo cannot explode if the launcher is destroyed by critical hit. Ammunition in the designated location in the mech, however, may. All missile ammunition is explosive, even NARC.

Weighing In

Spoiler

So, one may wonder if there is a 'sweet spot' weight in a given weight class, in which the combination of odd engine weights and armor and everything else makes one given weight a bit more ideal than another. And one might be right to wonder exactly that. Anyone who hasn't wondered that previously should know, that yes, it appears to be quite possible.

Consider THIS table. For each weight class (light, medium, heavy, and assault), we have a target max forward running speed in km/h (this is before the Speed Tweak skill). Then, for each weight (20 tons through 100 tons, in 5-ton increments) we have the required engine size to make that target speed. The weight of both Standard and XL engines of that rating is given, as is a mech weight. The mech weight is tallied using Smurfy mech lab, with 100% full armor, on an IS mech chassis of that weight. For light and medium mechs, both Endosteel and FerroFibrous are selected; for heavy and assault mechs, only Endosteel is selected, and armor is standard. The choice of Artemis IV FCS is irrelevant, as is the type of heat sink. In the cases of mechs with engines rated less than 250, weight is added for the required additional heat sinks to meet the 10 heat sink minimum.

Numbers presented in the STD free weight and XL free weight columns are presented in tons, as the amount of weight available on a mech with the specified engine and full armor. The percentage columns to the right of those, represent the free weights as a percentage of the mechs' maximum weights.

It is important to note, that the weight of a stripped mech is fixed by its max weight. That is, with the same armor and structure types, every 55-ton mech will weigh the same stripped as every other 55-ton mech. This is true across tech bases (Inner Sphere and Clan), but it is tricky for Clan omnimechs in MWO. We do not have the capability to strip engines and fixed equipment from Clan omnimechs in MWO. This weighs on the decision to use the speed targets stated in the spreadsheet.

So, the speeds chosen are 129.6 km/h for lights (Arctic Cheetah), 97.2 km/h for mediums (Shadow Cat, Storm Crow), 81.0 km/h for heavies (Ebon Jaguar, Timber Wolf, Hellbringer), and 64.8 km/h for assaults (Executioner).

The weights with the most free tonnage available with XL engines are 35, 55, 70, and 90. That includes a lot of the game's best mechs. At 35 tons we have the Jenner and Jenner IIC, which are very popular in competitive MWO for their ability to mount devastating firepower on a small, fast light mech. At 5 tons we have the popular Storm Crow and the very powerful Griffin. At 70 tons we have the Warhammer and Grasshopper. And at 90 tons, there is the Mauler as the premier Inner Sphere dakka mech.

Most free tonnage with a Standard engine is a bit different, however. The weights are 30, 50, 65, and 80. 30 tons only really gives us the Spider to consider, though it CAN be a competitive mech in some situations. At 50 tons we see notables like the Hunchback and Hunchback-IIC, which are very powerful mediums. 64 tons is possibly the most prolific weight in the heavy class, with the Catapult, Thunderbolt, and Jagermech among its top offerings. And the 80-ton weight is not so great, really, giving us only the Awesome and Zeus to compare. That said, either of those mechs can mount a survivable 320 Standard engine and full armor and have 31 tons available for weapons and heat sinks.

Of course, it is worth considering that these speeds are not fixed numbers that must be adhered to, and any engine size within the allowed range for that chassis can be used, which gives the builder some real flexibility. That will also significantly impact the overall free weight. Also, some mechs will have arms with no used or usable hard points in them (the Centurion is the Classic example, as no MWO variant has any hard points in the left arm), so those can be stripped of armor to make more weight available for weapons and equipment.

Now, most Inner Sphere heavy and assault mechs are comfortable at slower speeds than listed in the linked document. Also, many IS medium mechs are typically built for faster speeds. A future iteration of the document will take more speeds into account for at least some popular mechs. If nothing else, let the document serve to illustrate that the amount of free weight in a mech is not a linear function of its weight, but that there ARE indeed 'sweet spot' weights for a given speed and weight class, for which the most weight will be available to the builder for weapons and equipment.

And take that last point into account when deciding on a next mech to build.

Marking one's territory

Spoiler

This short section will cover some advice for best practices with making your mechs readily identifiable for their loadouts in the mech lab.

As players often notice, it is impossible to tell at a glance what equipment, engine, weapons, and so on, are equipped in a mech from some screens. Most irritatingly, this is true of the mech selection screens in the Faction Warfare tab, when selecting mechs for one's drop deck. (The specifics of drop deck organization and selection will not be covered in this topic.)

It is therefore advisable for a player to establish some convention for marking those mechs in a way that, at least to the individual player, makes the relevant details of their loadouts apparent even without examining the mech in mech lab.

This idea first occurred to me some time ago, but it was reinforced recently while watching user Sader325's Twitch.tv stream. He uses a color code system for the paint job on each mech, to identify the build type. That is, one color represents a Gauss Vomit build archetype, another indicates medium or medium pulse lasers, another LRM mechs, and so forth. He can easily determine by looking at his mech's tile in that selection screen, then, what type of equipment is installed on it.

Paint colors cost money, though, and some players are loathe to spend real money on a free-to-play game. And it is completely free to rename one's mech. In fact, players are prompted to name each mech as it is purchased in the in-game store (this prompt does not occur when mechs are item-injected into an account, by purchase of a mech pack or as a reward for a challenge event). And I hereby recommend using that feature.

I therefore recommend the following naming convention:

First, one should indicate with a single numeral or letter, if the mech is built and prepared for use in a FW drop deck. In my case, I use a 'Q' to indicate that it is qualified for FW, and 'N' to indicate non-qualified mechs.

The next most important item of information is the mech's engine rating. As the weight of the mech is apparent at a glance, if one is familiar with the various mechs of MWO, having the engine rating stated will give the pilot a quick indication of the mech's speed. Distinguishing XL or STD should not be important, as it will be apparent by the later items in the naming convention (more/heavier weapons generally indicate a greater likelihood of an XL engine, unless it is a particularly low rating). For this, in my case, I simply use the three-digit engine rating number, such as '300' for example.

Following that, there are a few items of equipment that are important to know. First, if a mech is equipped with ECM, I recommend indicating as much. A letter 'C' following the engine rating will suffice, and no such entry is necessary if there is no ECM equipped. Jump Jets are also important to indicate, and therefore a 'J' is also entered after the engine rating for mechs equipped with one or more of them. MASC can be indicated by a simple 'M'. In the event that the following entry begins with the same letter, one can recursively determine this to be the case (read back from the end to find the beginning of the appropriate entry for the next equipment).

And finally, the type and quantity of weapons, starting with the primary/priority systems, should be indicated. For instance, a dual-PPC mech would have a 'PP2' after the special equipment indicators (if any). A mech with 6 medium lasers and two medium pulse lasers, would have 'ML6MP2'. And so on.

So, some examples of various mech builds and their conventional names:

PXH-1B, XL 280, 2x PPC, ECM, 3x JJ, qualified for FW. 'Q280CJPP2'
KDK-SB, LB20X, 4x ASRM-6, Flamer, MASC, XL 400, non-qualified for FW. 'N400MLB1AS4F'
BJ-1X, XL295, 6x ML, 2x MPL, qualified. 'Q295ML6MPL2'
ACH-PRIME(I), XL240, ECM, JJ, 6x SPL, non-qualified. 'N240CJSP6'

And so on. For standard lasers, 'SL' 'ML' and 'LL'. For ER large lasers, 'EL' (no need to distinguish them on Clan mechs, as there are no standard lasers of any size). For pulse lasers, 'SP' 'MP' and 'LP'. For SRMs, 'SM', and for LRMs, 'LM'. For Artemis-equipped versions, 'AS' and "AL'. For Machine Guns, of course, 'MG', and for Gauss Rifles, 'GR'. Autocannons are a bit tricky due to the many variants of Clan autocannons. Luckily, most builds do not mix autocannon types or calibers. When all the autocannons on a mech are of the same type and caliber, it should be unnecessary to distinguish the caliber, and simply stating the type will be sufficient; 'LB' for LB-X, 'AC' for standard autocannon, and 'UC' for Ultra autocannon. If there are mixed autocannon types or calibers, one may need to be creative and stick the appropriate caliber number between the letters. For instance, a KDK with twin UAC/5s and twin UAC/10s, might list them as 'U5C2U10C2', though this can (in conjunction with the other information) become excessively long, and might further be shortened to 'U510C22' or similar; there is no such thing as a UAC/510 (that would be enough to almost completely obliterate an Atlas in a single shot!), and there is no mech that can mount 22 of any autocannon, so this should be simple enough to parse.

Again, this is simply advice for a quick-reference convention using the naming feature for one's mechs. It can be adjusted quickly and easily when one changes the loadout on a mech, and costs nothing to change as often as the player likes. And such a convention can save a player time and heartache when quickly swapping mechs into a drop deck after a contract change, or in order to best fit the map on which he will be fighting (as there is a 50-second window for such drop deck adjustments once a match is made in Invasion mode).

Players are encouraged, however, to develop a system that works best for them, or none at all. Most players simply have their builds committed to memory, and many even have their FW drop deck mechs dedicated and never change their loadouts. For most of us, though, it is often necessary to move mech modules between our mechs when moving from a Clan mercenary contract to an IS mercenary contract, or perhaps we have to share the more expensive engines between a number of mechs as we level them up. In this case, having that qualification indicator is a useful "HANDS-OFF" message, reminding me to leave that mech's equipment alone while it is in the rotation for Faction Warfare, and find the module or engine that I need somewhere else. I therefore share this, in the hope that it might help someone else even a little bit.

But take it for what it is worth, and disregard it if it seems superfluous or otherwise unnecessary.

Edited by Sister RAbbi, 26 June 2016 - 11:17 PM.

[Rogue Jedi]

Hi Rabbi, good post but there are a few areas that I have sugestions on

TheRAbbi, on 24 December 2015 - 07:59 PM, said:

Also keep in mind that FF armor and Endo Steel structure will occupy critical slots, but they’re called “Dynamic” in the Mech Lab for a reason. Those slots may be allocated ANYWHERE within the mech; they need not be in contiguous locations at all, so long as they are allocated. Mech Lab will automatically assign the critical slots within the mech for these, but if you want to place something in a location that has a dynamic slot allocated to armor or structure, as long as there is ample room SOMEWHERE else in the mech, Mech Lab will allow it and automatically move the armor and/or structure when you place the item.

do not forget that for Omnimechs the Endo and Fero slots are fixed not dynamic

Quote

Also, single heat sinks mounted in the mech’s LEGS can cool more efficiently if those legs are submerged in water

any heat sinks do this, in any location if the location is submerged, several lighter Mechs can go completely under water on some maps, there are several Clan Mechs where you can mount a double in the legs

Quote

When we change the heat sinks to doubles, and add Endo-Steel internal structure, we can free up even more weight. Using that additional weight, we can add back two double heat sinks (for a total of 10) to be still more heat efficient than we were before with a greater number of singles. And we can then change the three lasers to all medium pulse lasers (MPL), and carry a total of three (3) tons of Gauss ammo. This configuration is considerably more heat efficient than stock, and has a longer effective range for its primary weapon. But it is still SLOW.

If we then exchange the STD 200 engine for an XL 225, our top speed jumps to 72.9 km/h and we gain 1.5 tons of free weight. Also, the higher engine rating means an additional ninth double heat sink is now included in the engine’s weight and space, so we may remove one of the doubles for yet more free weight and space. Using that, we can install an Anti-Missile System (AMS) in the LT, and a ton of AMS ammo in the CT or one of the legs. Further, we can add the last bit of armor to CT, and all but one point to each of the legs, making the mech a little more survivable.

I know you are just illustrating what can be done, but explaining why an XL may not be wise in a Hunchback is probably a good idea, also for the Hunchback I would generally recommend taking the stock build, upgrading to Endo and DHS, then using the free space to upgrade the engine to a 250 or 275, upgrade all small lasers to mediums and then using any spare space for ammo or heatsinks, finally if there are still 15 or more slots free upgrade armor to Fero

Edited by Rogue Jedi, 25 December 2015 - 02:19 AM.

[Leone]

So, player, lets assume you listen to folk who suggest trying the hunchback as your first purchase. Its a good begginer mech, but I hear some folk just don't like the 4G for some reason.

That's okay, you can change it up.

Let's look at our options. I can walk you through altering your build to specifications.

Spoiler

So, let's say you don't feel like the 4G works for you. "Doesn't have enough punch," or "I can't get that close without getting torn up."

I've heard that before. Well, let's take a look at stock build. Well assume for the sake of arguement, and cheapness, that being undecided on selling it or keeping it, our undecided player has chosen not to buy any upgrades till they're sold on the variant. Fine, let's see what we can do. Sounds like you don't like the AC 20. Alright, take it out, an the ammo it came in with. Whadda we got? 16 tonnes spare and three more heatsink'n we need, (that AC 20 is fairly hot, and these are singles.)

For now, let's rip out the extra heat sinks. Now, we've plenty of room an 19 tonnes left. Range was chosen as a consideration for disliking the twenty. How's about some gauss? Fifteen tonnes, leaves plenty of room for ammo. Runs rather cool too.

Wait, what's that? unsure about the gauss mechanic? Heard it got nerfed? Okay, we've other options. what else we got in ballistics? Not a fan of the AC 2 myself. fast refire rate but not enough punch. At six tonnes each we could fit three in there. Or, oddly enough, for the same tonnage we could do two uac 5s. Takes up more room, but that packs a solid punch, a good twenty damage on a double tap, until it jams.

But, then we've have but one tonne of ammo. Not enough to really do anything. Where can we free up some tonnage? Well, we've still those lasers. We could switch out mediums for smalls, save one tonne there, at the expense of some range on our secondary weapons. I mean, we've got double the range now on our ballistics, not a huge loss.

So still not willing to buy endosteel yet? Okay, we don't wanna strip all the other weapons, only other thing we can mess with is that engine. You still got that standard from your locust? you know, the one that wasn't fast enough? Yeah, go grab that. (Disclaimer: the standard 160 is the same tonnage as the 170, and, should you be purchasing rather than cannabalizing, grab the larger engine.)

So, now with a smaller engine, we need to add two more heatsinks, since there're two less in the engine, but, now you have enough tonnage for four an a ahlf tonnes of ammo. Enough to do some decent damage. So there you go an HBK-4G that still hits hard, but from better range, at the expense of speed. And, should we like the build, we can then spend the cbills to add endosteel for a better engine, or even more ammo, as our player requires. And then, if still enamoured of the machine, we can get double heatsinks, cuz seriously, double heatsinks. And then, who knows, maybe keep the slow engine but upgrade to medium lasers?

The mech is your oyster. Go Wild.

~Leone.

Edited by Leone, 26 December 2015 - 12:25 PM.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

RJ-

Spoiler

Yeah, I hear ya. The XL engine explanation is forthcoming. For now, I felt it was best to just get through the minimum stuff. I felt it might have been a bit much to add that comment, that Endo is preferred over FF for the better weight savings. And I'm still worried that it's just too long, and will lose some folks. But you're right. I'd NEVER run an XL in a HBK, save MAYBE a -4SP (lacking the BIG hunch), or of course the Clan HBK-II-Cx. I seriously DO intend to get to that topic NEXT.

I wasn't sure if all HS do that. Seems PGI hasn't updated the tip in the loading screen rotation, that singles out the singles, since before the Clan invasion. As Clan doubles CAN fit into the legs (and in some omnimechs, they're locked in the legs), I've been meaning to test that. And torso-mounted, I tested long ago in the Locust, on a few different maps. Compared with SHS in torso only, SHS in legs, and DHS in torso only, on different maps, and in different depths of water (this was right after Crimson Strait map was released, and you could completely submerge a LCT for some distance at a run in the water there). Had full alpha strikes with a set loadout, time to overheat, comparison of standing/walking/running resting heat, etc. Lots of numbers. It's probably buried a hundred pages back by now in this forum, and I (like a dummy) ditched the data some time ago. MIGHT have some of it on Photobucket still, but with Clan tech, and with all the adjustments to capacity and dissipation, it's worth revisiting. I'll probably add that to this, after the first XL/STD engine discussion.

I'm pretty sure I mentioned the omnimechs-and-locked-equipment thing. That said, it apparently needs to be reiterated, and maybe underscored or something. Thanks!

Hey, HAPPY HOLIDAYS to everyone!

EDIT: Added section on STD/XL engines.

SECOND EDIT:



This is OLD data, from shortly after the Phoenix battlemechs were released. I will be conducting the experiment again. First, the addition of Clan mechs and their heat sinks adds another dimension. Second, the values for heat capacity and dissipation have changed. Therefore, it is worth revisiting. And it is relevant to the topic of mech construction for the VERY new player.

On to the above image. This is, again, OLD data. I started with three configurations of the LCT chassis. The LCT-1V(P) had three torso-mounted single heat sinks outside the engine (XL 190). The LCT-3M traded those singles for doubles, but maintained them in the same side-torso locations. And the LCT-3S kept single heat sinks, but mounted them in the legs. For each mech, I measured the registered heat (as percentage of maximum) on the HUD's heat bar for the numbers shown. First, I measured the resting heat (standing still). Then, I accelerated the mech to 50% or 60% of its maximum forward speed, which is labeled 'W' for "Walking", and then to maximum speed for the 'R' or 'Running' number. Next, I brought the mech to a standstill and allowed heat to normalize. At that point, I fired a single alpha strike (each mech was equipped with a single medium laser) from resting heat, and measured the maximum heat number displayed. Again, I allowed heat to normalize. At that point, I held the alpha strike key until the mech overheated (if it did at all) and measured the time it took to overheat. This was repeated for each mech, in Training Grounds, on three maps: Alpine Peaks, Crimson Strait, and Caustic Valley (old version of course). In Crimson Strait, I measured on dry ground, again in shallow water, and again in deep water. In Caustic Valley, I measured on dry ground, in the lake (only shallow water), and in the middle of the caldera (known to be hotter than the rest of the map).

I plan to repeat the experiment with the Locusts, as well as a JR7-D(S) or JR7-F(C), and one of the Clan JR7-II-C variants. The comparison Clan-to-IS will be less valuable, as the weapons used will have different heat, cooldown, and duration. I may opt for ERPPCs for the Jenners, therefore, to get the best possible comparison; both IS and Clan ERPPCs produce 15 heat and have a 4.00-second cooldown, unaided, per Smurfy. Quirks, however, will throw a bit of a wrench into the experiment.

EDIT AGAIN: Added section on heat sinks, with some updated observations on mech heat from TODAY. You're welcome, world!

Edited by TheRAbbi, 25 December 2015 - 06:36 PM.

[JC Daxion]

Leone, on 25 December 2015 - 04:04 AM, said:

So, player, lets assume you listen to folk who suggest trying the hunchback as your first purchase. Its a good begginer mech, but I hear some folk just don't like the 4G for some reason.

I love the 4G, but to me it is a hard mech to play over the 4H... That said, try the 4G with ac-20+ 4 tons and 3 SML+3 machine guns + 1 ton.. Once i started playing this build, while it is a much shorter ranged mech, it just shreds compared to the 3 ML version..

[Not A Real RAbbi]

I like the HBK for new players, and owned a few myself on my previous account. I have to agree that it is THE beginner battlemech. Variety of weapons loadouts makes the chassis a great learning experience, if you give it a try (-4G/H, -4J, -4P, gives the best overall experience). The big, squishy RT makes torso twisting and shielding imperative for survival. Engine cap allows for some respectably quick builds, without letting it get insanely out of hand, and that means that positioning is still a vital skill to learn (something I managed not to pick up, unfortunately). Low mounts for the arm weapons, but high mounts for the primaries? Good for teaching one's self about corner peeking and hill humping, at least with the direct-fire variants. HBK is just THE chassis. The HBK-IIC-x are even better in some ways, as they add Jump Jets and make all that goodness possible, while maintaining the squishy side torsos that make damage spreading so important. Seriously, can there even BE a better learning chassis than the HBK? It's so badass, even the Clans use it! (Okay, that might be a bit much.)

Also, this IS, in fact, a shameless self-promoting bump. Couldn't live with myself if I didn't come clean about that.

Reminder: The focus here is the very BASICS of construction. After all, there is no 'gate' mechanic for a new player before being able to move equipment and weapons around in his/her mechs. You see some crazy stuff now and then in the PUG queue. Sometimes, it's players just being derpy because it's fun (5x Flamer, 1x TAG, JR7-F(C) is a fun one). Sometimes, it's a new player who doesn't know any better.

What's more, and we're going to get to this soon, you often see builds that favor symmetry and multiple range brackets over proven effectiveness. Say you spot someone running a stock configuration on a MAD-3R, for instance. Yeah, THAT'S a great build. The arms are fairly squishy, so there go your low-mounted PPCs and MLs in a hurry, leaving you with just an AC/5 (and a single one of those is NOT okay for anything going under 97.2 stock). You can basically just leave that neutered 75-ton paperweight for the Commandos to finish off. It's a little more than BASIC mech building, but it's on the short list. Asymmetric builds, range brackets, quirk considerations, etc., are all forthcoming. And I'm trying to keep this as generalized and new player friendly as I can.

I DO APPRECIATE THE FEEDBACK, BTW, AS WELL AS THE DISCUSSION OF FAVORITE HBK BUILDS AND SO ON. It's HELPFUL! Keep it up!

<3

[latabar]

TheRAbbi, on 24 December 2015 - 07:59 PM, said:

The following is kind of a long read. It's worthwhile for new players, though, before they go asking us how-to and what-about questions. NOT that we don't like to help a new player, because we certainly DO, but this might help anyhow.

Read on, forgive the long and scrolling text, and expect further information to be added in the future.

Oh, and WELCOME TO ALL NEW PLAYERS!

INTRODUCTION:

Spoiler

Maybe you know, and maybe you don't, but MWO is not even close to the first game in this fictional future universe. It all began in the 1980s with a tabletop game called BattleTech.

Now, classic BattleTech (BT) had a few standard battlemechs that one could choose from to play. More were added in Technical Readouts over the years. We were first introduced to the Inner Sphere of the year 3025, and moved forward in increments through the Clan invasion, the Jihad, and so on, well into the 32nd Century. MWO currently resides somewhere in the 3050-3051 part of that universe's timeline, during the Clan invasion.

MWO began in the BT universe's year 3049, with all the technology that was available in the canon and lore to the Inner Sphere at that time. It has come a long way from then, over the course of well more than three years, from closed beta to open beta to release, and now through the Steam release. Each successive iteration has seen an influx of new players to the game, and the game has changed considerably along the way.

One thing that is in short supply in MWO, is formal instruction on most aspects of the game. That has fallen largely on the community, and some of us take it as a personal responsibility to help new players get into the game. This game has a pretty steep learning curve, at least partially because there is so much to it besides merely playing matches. One of those things is mech design and building.

And that is where this guide is intended to fit in. You see, a mech in this game can be outfitted in a nearly infinite number of different configurations of engines, armor, weapons, and other equipment. While there are some agreed-upon best practices, and some very common builds of certain mechs, it is still up to each player to decide how best to outfit his or her mechs. The one caveat being, that leaving a mech in its stock configuration, as delivered from the store, is almost always a bad idea for anyone wanting a positive gaming experience in MWO.

One simply must outfit his or her mech with improved equipment, deadlier weapons, faster engines, and so on. But again, there is no formal guidance for a new player on how to do so. The developers of this game are quite busy with trying to maintain game balance, implement new content, and further promote the game to prospective new players, and the community resource exists as a great source of information for incoming new players.

So, this guide is intended to help new, incoming players, to understand what different parts of a mech do, and how to decide how best to outfit a mech. It will not go into the specific details of using the Mech Lab UI itself, however. There are other guides and videos for that purpose already.

Please read the information below, leave any feedback you may have, and enjoy a very fun and challenging Free-to-Play game!

For starters...

Spoiler

Beginner’s Guide to Mech Construction and Modification

The purpose of this informal guide is to give beginning players a basic understanding of how mechs are constructed, and how they may be modified in the Mech Lab.

But, what is a mech? Well, it’s a big stompy robot with weapons and stuff. Duh, right? But there are different types of mechs, and this affects how they are built and modified in MWO.

Battlemechs differ from omnimechs in a few significant ways. When talking about one or the other specifically, we will use the specific term. When talking about generalities that apply to both, we will use the term “mech”.

A battlemech may be more extensively modified, but has fixed hard points in any variant. That is, if you have a battlemech with no ECM hard point, there is no way to mount an ECM in that mech under any circumstances. If it has a ballistic ( hard point in its right arm, and only that hard point, then there is no way to mount an energy (E) or missile (M) weapon in that arm.

Omnimechs are different. They have fixed equipment which cannot be moved, such as their engines. They have ‘omnipods’ in their components (arms, legs, three torso segments, and head) that can be interchanged between variants of the same chassis, and those omnipods determine what hard points exist in those components. Some omnipods contain fixed equipment, too. For instance, consider the Timber Wolf Clan omnimech. The TBR-S variant is equipped with locked jump jets in its side torso omnipods (2 in each) and its center torso (1). ANY Timber Wolf omnimech, therefore, may equip jump jets by equipping one of the Timber Wolf side torso omnipods. The locked equipment still weighs whatever it weighs, and takes up whatever critical space it does, though. While omnimechs allow for a greater variety of weapons and equipment loadouts, they limit the mechwarrior by allowing only exactly ONE engine size and type to be installed, and often further limit the mechwarrior with locked heat sinks that cannot be removed. Also, omnimechs do not allow modification of internal structure, armor type, and heat sink type.

So, what ARE all these things? Well, think of a mech as being like a human body. It’s not tough, since the human body was the overall model for the first mechs (IIRC, originally used for outer space mining). The human body has a skeleton, muscles, a brain, numerous internal organs that provide energy and expel waste, and skin to protect it all. So does every mech.

The skeleton is the mech’s Internal Structure (IS, not to be confused with Inner Sphere). This has a fixed weight based on the mech’s planned max weight. There are two types of IS: Standard and Endo-Steel. The Endo-Steel stuff is more expensive, and takes up additional critical space inside the mech (14 slots for IS, 7 slots for Clan). ALL other components and equipment mount to the mech’s IS.

The skin of a mech is its armor. Armor has a fixed value per ton. Again, there are two types currently deployed in MWO: Standard and Ferro-Fibrous. The latter, FF, gives more points per ton than does the former, and again costs extra critical space inside the mech (14 slots for IS, 7 for Clan). A mech may forego armor on any given component, and the amount of armor per location on a mech is adjustable from 0 to a maximum number of points that is based on the mech’s planned max weight. Each component has a different max armor value, except for a mech’s head; ALL mech heads are able to mount up to 18 points of armor.

The brain of a mech is the mechwarrior, of course. That said, the mechwarrior needs a cockpit and life support equipment, and the mech itself needs sensors (mimicking the human sensory organs) to provide necessary information to its ‘brain’. These components all reside in the mech’s head, and occupy five of its six critical slots. They may not be moved or modified in MWO at this time, and are fixed equipment in all mech types.

The guts of the mech are its engine and gyroscope. The engine is a portable fusion powerplant that provides a relatively enormous electrical current potential. This MUST be mounted in the Center Torso (CT) of the mech. There are two types of engine: Standard and eXtra-Light. XL engines weigh considerably less than standard engines, but take up more critical spaces split evenly between the two side torso components (6 for IS, 4 for Clan). The engine is replaceable equipment in IS and Clan battlemechs, and fixed equipment in Clan omnimechs. That is, Clan omnimechs MAY NOT exchange engines to increase performance or available weight, but Clan and IS battlemechs may. The gyro takes up 4 critical slots in the mech’s CT, and is fixed equipment in all mechs.

And the mech has to have muscles. In this case, that’s the mech’s actuators. There is only one type of actuators, and they are more-or-less fixed equipment. Some battlemechs do not have lower arm or hand actuators, and that is a fixed configuration for that variant. Some omnimechs’ arm omnipods have OPTIONAL lower arm and hand actuators, and those may be installed or removed at the player’s discretion in Mech Lab, at NO COST to the player.
Beyond the above items, a mech must have at least one weapon to be in a valid configuration for a match. The number and types of weapons that a mech can mount, are determined first by its available hard points.

Think of hard points as representing the basic chassis/variant layout with respect to ammunition handling and high-current electrical conduits. Sure, you can hang a large laser in a certain place if you really WANT to, but without a heavy enough power conduit to provide it ample electrical power to FIRE, it’s just going to sit there and take up space. Alternately, you can weld a long-range missile launcher on the mech’s head if you like. But without the internal capability to pass missile ammunition through the head to that launcher, it will be a big waste of weight and space. If you’ve ever seen the Ammunition Handling System of the AH-64 Apache (I know I have), then you know exactly what I mean. SO, the every battlemech’s individual variants are built in the factory to accommodate certain types of weapons and equipment in certain locations, and that’s all.

Along come the omnimechs, though, and have the hard points assigned by these interchangeable omnipods. It’s like being able to quickly swap the missile arms from a CPLT-A1 onto your CPLT-K2, in place of its energy weapons arms, so you can tack LRMs onto it with your twin AC/2s for a long-range specialist. And then, go back to the Mech Lab and put it all back the other way again. All at your whim, really.

You might think that this means a slam-dunk for omnimechs, but so far the IS battlemechs have benefitted FAR more greatly from a quirk system. That was originally implemented to make a certain few mechs stand out, and has since been applied to a few iterations of mech balancing. It’s meant to reflect the specialization of battlemechs to their intended roles, and the specialized design of each variant versus the omnimechs’ more interchangeable, generalist design. There are numerous opinions, pro and con, on whether this approach is working well, and we will avoid that sub-topic here.

CRITICAL SPACE! This is the room left INSIDE the mech for mounting weapons, ammunition, additional heat sinks, and other specialized equipment. The more you have available, all else being equal, the more or bigger things you can fit into your mech.

Every weapon in the mech lab, as well as every piece of other equipment that can be mounted (except modules, which take ZERO space, and are considered negligible in space/weight), has a value under the ‘SLOTS’ column in the Mech Lab. That indicates how many critical slots that item occupies.

Every mech has a beginning total of 6 slots in each leg and head, and 12 in each arm and torso component. The head loses five of those slots to fixed equipment, and the CT loses 10 (engine and gyro). The arms each lose 2-4, depending on what actuators are installed. The legs lose 4 each to actuators. Beyond that, mounting an XL engine can take 4-6 additional side torso slots, and FF armor and Endo-Steel structure can take up 7 or 14 more slots each (depending on the technology base of the MECH itself—Clan and IS tech cannot be mixed on any mech at this time).

So, you start with ((6*3)+(12*5)=78, 78-5-10-(4*2)-(3*2)=49) forty-nine slots, give or take, that can be used for equipment. (I used 3 for each arm, as an average number. Some mechs will have 4 slots occupied with actuators, some will only have 2, and some will have optionally 2, 3, or 4.)

Now, having installed all of that, you still need to determine if you want FF armor, endo steel IS, and/or an XL engine. If you’re using Inner Sphere tech, that’s (49-14-14-6=15) fifteen critical slots left for weapons, equipment, and ammunition. For Clan tech, that’s (49-7-7-4=31) thirty-one slots available for the same. And remember, if it’s a Clan omnimech, those decisions are already made for you, and if installed they are FIXED equipment that cannot be changed by the player.

Also keep in mind that FF armor and Endo Steel structure will occupy critical slots, but they’re called “Dynamic” in the Mech Lab for a reason. Those slots may be allocated ANYWHERE within the mech; they need not be in contiguous locations at all, so long as they are allocated. Mech Lab will automatically assign the critical slots within the mech for these, but if you want to place something in a location that has a dynamic slot allocated to armor or structure, as long as there is ample room SOMEWHERE else in the mech, Mech Lab will allow it and automatically move the armor and/or structure when you place the item.

WEIGHT! It’s every inch as important as critical space. Every component of a mech, that can be installed/removed at the player’s discretion, has weight. The sum of all these weights, as well as the weight of the mech’s structure, can amount to a total not exceeding the mech’s maximum weight. For all Timber Wolf mechs, for instance, that is 75 tons. For a Firestarter, that is 35 tons. 20 for a Locust, 100 for a Dire Wolf, and so on. That maximum weight CAN NOT be exceeded by the player, not even by a single tenth of a ton. The mech MAY weigh less, at the player’s discretion, but this is not advised and will not yield any benefit at all.

First, the structure and all fixed components of even the simplest battlemechs all have weight. Go into the Mech Lab and strip all of the equipment and armor from your mech. If that mech is a stock HBK-4G Hunchback, then with nothing but structure and fixed equipment, it will weigh 5.0 tons. That is, the structure and fixed equipment (cockpit, gyro, life support, sensors, and actuators) combine to a total of 5.0 tons, leaving 45 tons available for other equipment. Already, we can change the structure type from Standard to Endo-Steel and see a 50% reduction in the mech’s overall weight, from 5.0 to 2.5 tons.

Next, install the maximum armor value, 338 points for a 50-ton mech (32 per arm, 18 head, 48 per leg, 64 total CT (front AND back are separate), and 48 total per side torso (front and back are separate, again, like with CT). In this case, it weighs 10.6 tons. If we change that to Ferro-Fibrous armor, it now weighs 9.4 tons for the same amount of armor protection. NOTE: Given the choice of only FF or Endo-Steel, most mechwarriors choose the latter—it gives a higher weight savings for the same sacrifice of critical space, and is therefore a greater overall benefit.

Now, install the mech’s engine. In this case, the stock HBK-4G comes with a 200 Standard engine. That engine weighs 11.5 tons, and takes up only 6 critical slots in the CT. If we opt instead for an XL 200 engine, the weight drops to 7.5 tons (a 4-ton savings, at the expense of those extra 6 critical slots). Another way of looking at it is, that we can maintain the same engine WEIGHT but get a higher rating with an XL. There isn’t an XL engine that weighs 11.5 tons, so the closest one is the XL 245 at 11.0 tons even. That bumps up the mech’s top speed to 79.4 km/h, compared to its stock 64.8 km/h with the 200-rated engine.

Now, there is something important to know about engines and heat sinks. Every engine contains SOME heat sinks. Divide the engine’s rating by 25, and that is the engine’s maximum INTERNAL heat sink capacity. The first heat sinks up to a total of ten (10) are FREE, both in terms of weight AND space. Also, a valid mech configuration for battle MUST have at least ten (10) heat sinks, whether they are internal to the engine or not. SO, a 250 engine might be only a little bit faster than a 245, but it also contains an tenth heat sink. Though it’s 1.5 tons heavier, the lighter engine also requires at least one more heat sink be installed OUTSIDE the engine before it is a valid configuration for battle. The difference, therefore, is only truly 0.5 tons, and the heavier engine takes less space for that reason.

For engines rated 275 or higher, each additional 25-ton internal heat sink is empty (the engine comes with only up to ten built-in), but the capacity is within the engine to hold the additional heat sinks. Consider the 300XL, which is one of the game’s best and most versatile. It comes with 10 internal heat sinks, but it can HOLD up to twelve (300/25=12). If you equip the extra two heat sinks, you MAY put them inside the engine as well. You will still be stuck with the extra 1.0 ton per heat sink, but you need not sacrifice the additional critical space to mount them.

For our example HBK-4G, we must mount at least two heat sinks outside the engine. There are two different kinds of heat sinks: Single and Double. INSIDE the engine, a single heat sink has the same capacity as outside, but a DOUBLE heat sink… well, you get the point. Outside the engine, the doubles do significantly less work than inside, but are still more efficient at heat removal than are the singles. Double heat sinks also take up more space (3 critical slots IS, 2 critical slots Clan) than singles (1 critical slot IS or Clan). Also, single heat sinks mounted in the mech’s LEGS can cool more efficiently if those legs are submerged in water, but this is not common in MWO at this time, and it is therefore not advisable to prefer singles over doubles for this reason. In fact, virtually EVERY mech in this game is better served by double heat sinks than by singles.

Now, it’s time to decide on the weapons layout. For the HBK-4G, we have few options. There are energy weapons hard points in the arms (1 each) and head (1), and ballistic weapons hard points in the right torso (3). That is all. If we wanted to mount missiles on a Hunchback, we picked the wrong variant (HBK-4J, -4SP, or –GI, are the only IS HBK variants capable of carrying missiles at all). Let us consider the stock configuration of this battlemech. This configuration mounts medium lasers (ML) in each arm, and a small laser (SL) in the head. It also mounts an Autocannon/20 (AC/20) in the right torso, and two tons of ammunition for that autocannon in the left torso. Finally, it carries five (5) heat sinks external to the engine (in addition to the engine’s built-in 8), two in each leg and one in the CT. It sacrifices 8 points of armor in each leg, and another 2 in the CT. Were we so inclined, we could remove the AC/20 from the RT and replace it with up to 3 other ballistic weapons, so long as their weight and critical space would fit.

So, let us do just that. By removing the AC/20 and ammo, and replacing it with a Gauss rifle, we can lower the mech’s total heat. That, in turn, would allow us to remove some of the additional heat sinks to make room for more ammo, heavier energy weapons, or a faster engine. Doing so, you will notice, greatly increases the mech’s heat efficiency number. That means that the mech can fire continuously for a longer time before overheating.

When we change the heat sinks to doubles, and add Endo-Steel internal structure, we can free up even more weight. Using that additional weight, we can add back two double heat sinks (for a total of 10) to be still more heat efficient than we were before with a greater number of singles. And we can then change the three lasers to all medium pulse lasers (MPL), and carry a total of three (3) tons of Gauss ammo. This configuration is considerably more heat efficient than stock, and has a longer effective range for its primary weapon. But it is still SLOW.

If we then exchange the STD 200 engine for an XL 225, our top speed jumps to 72.9 km/h and we gain 1.5 tons of free weight. Also, the higher engine rating means an additional ninth double heat sink is now included in the engine’s weight and space, so we may remove one of the doubles for yet more free weight and space. Using that, we can install an Anti-Missile System (AMS) in the LT, and a ton of AMS ammo in the CT or one of the legs. Further, we can add the last bit of armor to CT, and all but one point to each of the legs, making the mech a little more survivable.

What are some things we cannot do? Well, we cannot install ECM in this mech. There are a limited few mechs that are capable of carrying ECM. Consider that the ECM system is, first and foremost, a JAMMING system. The carrying mech, therefore, must be immune to its own jamming, first and foremost. And it is a POWERFUL system at that. So, the mech carrying it must be relatively specialized for that task, with addiional steps taken early in its design to ensure that it may do so reliably without harming its own other systems.

Battlemechs CAN NOT mount equipment for which they have no hard points. Omnimechs must have an appropriate hard point in one of their omnipods, in order to mount a piece of equipment. If an omnipod is not available for your omnimech to support that equipment, then it simply cannot be mounted. For instance, only one variant of the Arctic Cheetah carries ECM, but that omnipod can be transferred to ANY Arctic Cheetah, making ANY Arctic Cheetah on the battlefield a potential ECM-carrier. On the other hand, there is no ECM omnipod for the Storm Crow, so no matter which SCR variant or omnipod you purchase, you can never mount ECM on one.

IMPORTANT ENGINE CONSIDERATIONS:

Spoiler

Your mech's engine rating and weight determine its maximum running speed. The system is still based on the old tabletop BattleTech game, which used movement points determined by the ratio of a mech's engine rating to its maximum weight. For example, our HBK-4G weighed 50 tons and had a 200-rated engine. That gave it a walking value of 4, and a running (maximum) value of six (4*1.5=6). That is, it could spend up to six movement points in a single turn. In the event that the resulting product was not an integer, it was rounded up to the next integer. Consider the Ebon Jaguar, with its 325 XL engine and 65-ton weight. That yields a walking MP value of 5, but that would give a running MP of 7.5. So, the 7.5 is rounded up to 8.

We have moved on to real-time simulation of that movement with MWO, but the same movement rate still applies in terms of maximum walking and running movement rates. But where BattleTech allowed no increments but integer values, we have the opportunity to use increments of 5 in engine ratings and realize the incrementally-increasing maximum forward speeds.

To determine your mech's maximum forward speed with a given engine rating, first divide the engine rating by the mech's maximum weight. Then, multiply THAT number by 16.2, and the resulting product is the mech's MAXIMUM RUNNING speed in kilometers per hour. So, the HBK-4G can be built with a 200 engine for a maximum forward running speed of 64.8 km/h (200/50*16.2=64.8). If we change the engine to a 225 rating, the speed increases to 72.9 km/h, more than 8 km/h faster than stock for a relatively small increase in engine weight.

Additional information concerning Standard and eXtra Light (XL) engines:

Spoiler

Standard and XL engines

So, there is more drawback to an XL engine that merely taking up additional torso critical hit slots. That IS, in itself, a big drawback for some larger mechs; an AC/20 cannot be mounted in the side torso of a mech with an XL engine, as there is simply not enough space for both.

Also, an engine is considered destroyed if THREE critical slots worth of it are destroyed. One way to destroy equipment, of course, is to destroy the location in which that equipment is installed. And since IS XL engines take up three (3) critical slots in each side torso, destroying either side torso will destroy the mech’s XL engine, and thereby destroy the mech.

On the other hand, Standard engines are considerably heavier than XLs. Consider again, the incredibly popular 300-rated engines. If you’re building a JR7-D Jenner, which is a fine first battlemech, 300 is the highest engine rating it can support. But that STD 300 engine weighs 25 tons, and the mech itself has a max weight of 35 tons. That is, the engine alone takes all but 10 tons of the mech, and we still have armor and internal structure to consider. In fact, it is impossible to fit a STD 300 engine in the JR7 chassis with maximum armor without upgrading to FF or Endo-Steel. Even with both upgrades, the STD 300 leaves only 1.35 tons for weapons and other equipment. Change that to the XL 300, though and you still have over 10.5 tons available for weapons and equipment. For a fast light mech, XL engines are an absolute requirement.

Now, consider our previous example of the HBK-4G. The Hunchback is notorious for ‘squishy’ (that is, easily destroyed) side torso components. While a relatively powerful HBK build is possible with an XL engine, it is also vulnerable to quick destruction because of the susceptibility of those side torso components to destruction. Let us revisit that mech.

If we consider the stock HBK-4G loadout, and then add Endo-Steel structure and double heat sinks, we notice a couple of things immediately. First, even losing 7 of the single heat sinks, we have higher heat efficiency. But that’s another topic. We also see a weight savings of 5.5 tons (after adding back 2 external double heat sinks, to the minimum of 10). Let us leave ONE internal double heat sink installed, change the head-mounted small laser to a medium laser, add two tons of AC/20 ammo, and remove the STD 200 engine. We now have 15.5 tons available for an engine, which perfectly accommodates a STD 230 engine. The 230 engine requires only one external heat sink, which we have installed. We now have a more reasonable ammo load of 28 rounds (7 rounds per ton for IS-tech AC/20), and our mech’s top speed has increased by roughly 10 km/h without sacrificing survivability. And if we’re married to the Gauss rifle of the previous example, we could swap the AC/20 and 4 tons of ammo, for a Gauss rifle and 3 tons (10 rounds per ton) of ammo, gaining two more shots and more than doubling the effective range of our primary weapon. Certainly, the mech could go faster with an XL engine, and it could accommodate that AND the Gauss rifle. But then, between the Gauss rifle’s tendency to explode when hit critically and the ‘squishy’ side torso components, it would be best to stick with a slower STD engine.

Some mechs are better suited to XL engines than others. For instance, the CPLT chassis, or Catapult. This is a classic IS-tech battlemech that was among the game’s first few. Looking at the mech, we see less well-defined side and center torso components. So does an enemy targeting that mech. It is considerably easier to spread torso damage in a CPLT (a concept that will not be discussed here, but that is covered in EXCELLENT detail in the Guides & Strategies forum by Kanajashi’s cadet video tutorials), and the side torso hit boxes are relatively small, so that chassis lends itself better to using an XL engine. Again, though, this is not feasible for those wanting to build the “Boom Cat” CPLT-K2 with AC/20, as an XL engine leaves insufficient room in either side torso for that weapon’s required 10 critical slots. The “Gauss Cat”, however, is still feasible. But again, great care must be taken to spread damage, as placing a Gauss rifle in a side torso with an IS-tech XL engine can be a recipe for disaster—if the weapon is destroyed by critical hit, even if internal structure remains, it will explode similarly to ammunition, and likely destroy the remainder of the side torso AND the XL engine, effectively destroying the mech.

With the release of the Clan Origins II-C battlemechs, we finally have Clan tech that can be modified similarly to IS-tech battlemechs. Most importantly to this discussion, we have mechs that can swap different sized engines. There is far less down side to the Clan battlemechs running XL engines, though. Recall, that an engine must have THREE (3) critical slots or more destroyed before it is itself considered destroyed. And recall that Clan XL engines only occupy TWO (2) critical slots per side torso. One could destroy an XL-equipped Clan battlemech’s right torso, and that mech will be able to continue the fight (unlike an IS-tech battlemech with an XL engine, which would be destroyed). Losing that single side torso costs the mech 20% of its performance (speed, turn rate, etc), but it may still fight. It is therefore scarcely worth considering installing an XL engine in a Clan battlemech.

And again, Clan omnimechs’ engines are locked equipment, and may not be altered. They may not even be removed for installation in other Clan mechs.

In summary, the choice of Standard or XL engine affects not only the available weight and space within the mech, but also its survivability. Each player must decide for himself/herself which engine type to use, giving consideration to the requirements for speed, weaponry, and survivability.

HEAT, HEAT SINKS, and YOU

Spoiler

So, every thing that a mech does, creates heat. Namely, movement and weapons firing create heat. Your mech is a fairly delicate machine on the inside, and heat is very bad for it. It’s kind of like a computer, and if it were real then it would contain a lot of microprocessors and wiring. For reference, an AH-64D Longbow Apache helicopter weighs less than ten (10) tons loaded, and carries 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) or more of electrical wires. And it doesn’t have the ridiculously complex myomer actuators that your mech has, and it doesn’t have those stupidly hot energy weapons either. And that monster STILL has to carry TWO eleven (11) pound R-134a vapor cycle cooling systems (VCCS) to keep the electronics cooled down. (Ask me why I have a Universal refrigerant technician license from the EPA. G’head. I dare ya.)

So, HEAT = BAD. More stuff means more heat. And you’ve got to get that heat back out of your mech, in order for the mech to be useful. Along come heat sinks!

First, there are two types of heat sinks: Single, and Double. Each has different cooling characteristics, depending on how it is installed in a mech. And there are differences between Clan and Inner Sphere Double Heat Sinks. Oh, and any heat sinks installed in a component, which is then submerged in water, cools even more efficiently.

First, we’ve seen before that every mech has a requirement to have at least ten (10) heat sinks installed in order to be valid for a match. IF some of those heat sinks are destroyed in the match, though, the mech may continue to function. But ten heat sinks is the minimum, regardless of the type (single or double).

Next, we must consider that every engine will contain heat sinks. The type depends on what type are installed in the mech, and it takes no effort or cost on the player’s part to change the heat sinks in the engine, when switching engines between mechs. Say you have a pair of Locusts, an LCT-1V and LCT-3M. The -1V has single heat sinks, and the -3M has doubles, and you can only afford a single XL 190 engine right now to share between the two mechs. If you install that engine in the -1V, it will automatically take on single heat sinks. If you then remove it from the -1V and install in the -3M, it will automatically change to doubles, at no cost to you and with no additional effort on your part.

Every mech’s engine can hold a set number of heat sinks. Divide the engine rating by 25, rounding down to the integer, and that is how many heat sinks it may contain at maximum. Up to TEN heat sinks are already included in the engine’s weight, or fewer if the engine is rated below 250. If the engine is rated 275 or higher, the engine MAY hold additional heat sinks, at no additional critical space requirements, up to its maximum capacity. Those additional heat sinks beyond the first ten (10), however, will still have their weight counted against the mech’s max.

Now, single heat sinks weigh one ton and take up one critical space. Inner Sphere (IS) double heat sinks (DHS) weight one ton, but take up three critical slots. Clan DHS weigh one ton, and take up two critical slots.

It is important to reiterate, that there is virtually NO situation in which it is ideal to retain single heat sinks. It may not be necessary on many builds of the LCT-1V to install DHS, but it is still a worthwhile measure.

Now, there are circumstances under which heat sinks may remove heat at an increased rate. That is, when the heat sinks’ component is submerged in water. Most maps do not have water deep enough to submerge significant portions of a mech’s torso, but many do have water at least deep enough to submerge part or all of a mech’s legs. Single heat sinks, and Clan DHS, can fit in a leg if there is no other equipment already occupying those critical slots. As there are only two (2) available critical slots at most in a mech’s legs, though, it is impossible to install an IS DHS in a leg. This is not a HUGE consideration, since it is fairly infrequent that a mech will have cause to be in even ankle-deep water. However, if there is no further room in the mech’s engine, and no important equipment occupies its legs, then it may be ideal to place any additional external heat sinks in the legs, in case the mech DOES enter water.

But heat sinks placed within the mech’s engine also cool more efficiently than outside, and about as efficiently as those in submerged components. If your mech has space for another heat sink in the engine, then that is almost always the best place to install the next heat sink. Unless you are planning to use the heat sink for ‘crit-padding’, and the heat efficiency of the mech is already sufficient, the engine should be filled first.

Now for some observations. Refer to the linked document, which should be available for public viewing on Google.

This experiment was conducted on December 25^th, 2015, in the live MWO client with the current patch (as of that date) installed. Three mechs were used. First, an IS JR7-D(S) and Clan ACH-PRIME(I) were each outfitted with a single ERPPC and one external DHS, with an engine accommodating 9 internal DHS. The Jenner was outfitted with its maximum of 5 jump jets, compared to the Arctic Cheetah’s 6 jump jets. Nontheless, their performances should be relatively equal. These two were each measured on Alpine Peaks (cold map), Crimson Strait (moderate temperature map), and Caustic Valley (hot map). Two passes were accomplished in Caustic Valley; one outside the caldera, and one completely inside of it. For each mech, heat was measured as the highest displayed percentage of capacity on the mech’s HUD. Heat was measured standing still, then walking (~50% of max forward speed), and then running, and then at maximum jump height. After that, I took three measurements of max heat after a single shot from a standstill and resting heat. I repeated the process again, but with the mech at a run (100% forward speed). In each case, I recorded three observations, and then recorded the average of the three. I allowed at least three seconds after the temperature stabilized after each shot, before I fired again. Finally, I recorded a time-to-overheat (TTO). The TTO measurement is in seconds, beginning with a full forward throttle command AND holding down the fire key for the sole weapon, an ERPPC. The ERPPC was chosen, because both Clan and IS ERPPCs have the same heat and cooldown values, and neither of the mechs used has any quirks applicable to energy weapons. Also, both mechs are MASTERed, so double BASIC skills are unlocked (Heat Containment and Cool Run, specifically), as well as the ELITE-level Fast Fire skill (reduces all weapon cooldown times).

The results, however, tell us very little. All of the recorded observations for both mechs were nearly identical. Only on the very hottest run, in the caldera on Caustic Valley, did we see any measurable difference between the two mechs (the JR7-D(S) was cooler firing, but about 1% of max heat, which isn’t truly statistically significant). TTO for both mechs was identical.

Next, we considered three different builds of the recently-released JR7-IIC-3. First was with a 300XL engine, 10 DHS (10 internal to the engine, none external), six (6) jump jets, and a single ERPPC. The mech was then reconfigured with a 200XL engine, with 10 DHS (8 internal, 2 external), and otherwise identical equipment. The DHS were installed in the side torso components, one in each. And finally, I repeated part of the sample with the 200XL configuration, moving the DHS to the legs and leaving the mech otherwise the same. Both configurations with the 200XL were run through the same tests in shallow water on Crimson Strait (unfortunately, there is no water there that can support fully submerging a JR7 chassis, Clan or IS). These results clearly underscored the value of heat sink positioning within the mech.

First, comparing the XL300 configuration to the XL200, we see that the XL200 was consistently 1-2% higher in heat on more than half of the observations. That is not significant in itself, but the TTO was 4 seconds shorter on all four tests for the XL200. That is, it was capable of exactly one more shot of that ERPPC before overheating (the ERPPC has a four-second cooldown time without skills or quirks). But the water test was most striking of all. The XL200 configuration manages TWO more shots of the ERPPC with the heat sinks leg-mounted, than with them torso-mounted. That also means that it could fire more than the XL300 configuration, with the DHS mounted within the engine. That configuration ran consistently cooler in firing tests, than either of the other two. It beat the others by 5-6% in displayed heat in firing tests, and by four and eight seconds (one and two shots of the ERPPC). Interesting, and possibly anomalous, is that the leg-mount JR7 was even cooler while JUMPING, which removes the legs from the water and SHOULD thus nullify the submerged-heat-sink bonus.

The results support the game developers’ assertions, therefore, that heat sinks mounted inside the engine are more efficient than those outside of it, and those mounted in components that are then submerged in water, are more efficient yet while submerged.

And seeing all that, I summarize as follows: Any heat sinks that may be mounted inside an engine, should be. Those that cannot be mounted inside an engine, are best mounted in the legs if possible. Only once those two possibilities have been eliminated, should the player then consider using heat sinks as crit pads (a topic for later) in other locations.

The Mech Lab shows you a heat efficiency number for your mech, based on the current configuration show in the lab (even if it has not yet been saved). Each player will have a different comfort zone with that number, but 1.3 or higher is generally safe for newer players, assuming no ‘ghost heat’ (which will be discussed later). Any lower number than that, and the build may need more heat sinks, or the player may need to exercise caution to not fire all weapons together (‘alpha strike’) often. Any higher than 1.4, and it may be worth removing a heat sink (if possible) to add ammunition, armor, more weapons, or other equipment.

Ammunition, Gauss Rifles, and Locating Equipment in Components

Spoiler

If you haven’t already learned this, ammunition CAN explode when critically hit, doing considerable damage to the mech. Gauss ammo doesn’t explode, but Gauss rifles MAY (similarly to ammo). An ammo explosion is almost always a death sentence for the component in which it occurs. And if it destroys that component with leftover damage, then THAT damage transfers inward to the next component. Arms and legs transfer excess damage to the side torso on their side, and the side torsos transfer to the center torso.

Recall that any equipment in a destroyed component is itself destroyed, regardless of its prior condition. This includes one of the most important design considerations, the extended XL engine slots in the side torso segments. And recall especially, that destroying 3 critical slots of an engine, destroys the engine itself. In the case of a Clan XL engine, that would require destroying both side torso components. For IS XL engines, though, losing a single side torso destroys the entire engine, also destroying the mech.

First, the Gauss rifle. It is a heavy weapon, weighing in at 15 tons for IS tech and 12 tons for Clan. That leads many into temptation to install XL engines, in order that they may build Gauss platforms that aren’t too slow. But if the Gauss rifle must be installed in the side torso, this is considered a very bad idea on most mechs (the CPLT-K2 ‘Gauss Cat’ is a notable exception, as the side torso components are smaller and harder to single out, helping the XL engine survive longer). According to Smurfy, THE mech builder’s reference for MWO, the Gauss rifle has a health of 5.00 HP (if hit critically for 5 points of damage or more, it will be destroyed), and has a 90% chance to explode if destroyed by critical hit. That explosion produces an additional 20 points of damage to the internal structure of the component it is installed in, and that damage also may transfer if it exceeds the remaining structure value in that component.

No other weapon is potentially explosive, like the Gauss rifle, but all ballistic and missile weapons (including machine guns, NARC beacons, and even anti-missile systems) require ammunition. And ammunition destroyed by critical hit has a chance to explode, except for Gauss ammo. In the event that ammunition is destroyed, it does damage equal to the maximum damage value of all the rounds remaining in that location. For instance, if a one-ton bin of AC/20 ammunition is destroyed, it may do 140 points of damage (20 damage per round, times 7 rounds per ton; 20*7=140). If there are only three rounds remaining in that location, then it will do 60 points of damage (3*20=60). Each critical slot of ammunition, whether a half-ton or a ton, is its own segment, and its ammunition should be counted individually from any other ammunition stored in that same component, even if they appear to be contiguous on the mech in Mech Lab.

No other equipment can explode, though. Consider that, if a weapon hits an unarmored location on a target mech, it has a chance to cause critical damage. To which slot, though? That’s random. That said, the more non-explosive critical slots that exist in a location, the lower chance that something explosive will be hit. Say you have an arm on your mech, with only three tons of ammunition and one IS double heat sink in it. Each ammunition ton occupies one slot, and the DHS occupies three more itself, for six total slots. Further, your mech has all four actuators in that arm (shoulder, upper arm, lower arm, and hand). So, of the ten filled slots, three are explosive. There is a 30% chance that explosive ammunition will be damaged, possibly destroying the arm. On the other hand, if you removed the DHS, you’d be left with three of seven critical slots occupied by explosive ammunition, or about a 43% chance that the ammo will take the critical damage. Say your mech also carries a Beagle Active Probe. In that case, if the probe were installed in the arm, then you have a mere 25% chance that ammo will be damaged by a critical hit.

Losing a single arm, especially if it contains no weapons or other valuable equipment, is not such a big deal. Many builds strip armor from one or both arms, to save weight for more important components, and consider the arms expendable. This topic will be covered separately. Losing a torso segment, however, can be devastating in mechs with XL engines. If it is an IS XL engine, then the mech will be destroyed. IF it is a Clan XL engine, it will not destroy the mech (as long as the other side torso is intact), but it will reduce the mech’s performance by 20% (max speed, turning rate).

So you see, mounting something as easily destructible as a Gauss rifle in a side torso, can be a recipe for disaster.

Enter Cellular Ammunition Storage Equipment, or CASE. CASE occupies one critical slot and weighs one half-ton, and it protects the rest of your mech from damage transfer from a destroyed location. ALL Clan mechs, omnimechs or battlemechs, automatically have CASE included in all of their components at no additional weight or space penalty. IS Battlemechs must equip the CASE deliberately. It is largely ineffective in IS mechs, though. If CASE is installed in a side torso, for instance, that side torso may still be completely destroyed, but any excess critical damage WILL NOT transfer inward to the CT. However, if the mech is carrying an XL engine, the mere destruction of one side torso is sufficient to destroy the engine, and thereby destroy the mech. In this case, CASE is not worth carrying. In the case of an IS mech with a STD engine, though, it may be worthwhile to protect against ammunition explosion transfer to the CT by installing CASE in the side torso components. This will protect the mech’s engine from damage or destruction from critical damage transfer, allowing the mech to remain in the fight with its surviving capabilities.

A common practice for IS battlemechs from the earliest days of MWO has been to store explosive ammunition first in the mech’s legs. In the event of an ammunition explosion there, the damage must first destroy the leg (which has a higher structure value than an arm), then transfer to the side torso, and only after destroying that, transfer to the CT. Legs are also less frequently hit, or even targeted, in most cases. (It is not unusual to sweep lasers over the legs of fast-moving light mechs, as they can be difficult to hit despite fixes to hit registration in the game.) After the legs, the single critical slot in a mech’s head is also a popular place to store ammo. The head is difficult to hit on most mechs, so despite its relatively low max armor value of 18, it is safer than a torso. After that, the two critical slots in the center torso are most often used. As the CT has more armor and structure than any other location on a mech, it is relatively safe despite being the most often-targeted component. After that, side torso or arm location of ammunition may be used, but is usually ill-advised.

Clan omnimechs are a bit different, since all components have built-in CASE. It is often best to store ammunition in the legs for Clan mechs, too. Beyond that, it may be better to store ammunition with the weapon system that uses it. In that way, if the weapon is destroyed, then the ammunition that goes with it won’t jeopardize any location other than the one containing that weapon. And if the ammunition is destroyed, it only takes that component out that contains the weapon that uses the destroyed ammo. The exception, of course, is Gauss.

Recall that Gauss ammunition is non-explosive, but Gauss rifles CAN explode. If there are any critical slots remaining in a component that contains a Gauss rifle, it is best to store the Gauss ammo there. After that, any remaining Gauss ammo to be mounted, may be used to crit-pad other locations with sensitive equipment or ammunition. If at all possible, avoid mounting Gauss rifles in side torso components on mechs with IS XL engines.

One last consideration: overheating your mech MAY cause explosive ammunition to explode. In the event that it does, that damage will be in addition to the potential damage from the overheating (always to the CT). It is rarely acceptable to overheat, but even less so in a mech that carries explosive ammunition. Mixing energy and ballistic weapons is common, but care should be taken to ensure that heat management is also up to the task of protecting your mech from overheat ammo explosions. Destruction of your mech by overheat damage, or by an ammo explosion brought on by overheating, is considered suicide in MWO, and suicide incurs a penalty to your match result.

Reminder about Clan omnimechs

Spoiler

I would like to take a moment to point out, that Clan omnimechs, as mentioned previously, typically have certain FIXED equipment and structure/armor types. Let us call the type of armor, structure, and heat sinks, the mech's modifications. Omnimechs also often have fixed equipment, that cannot be moved from its location in a given omnipod.

If, for instance, you purchase a Shadow Cat Prime (SHC-PRIME), you will notice that it is equipped with double heat sinks (DHS), Ferro-Fibrous armor (FF), and Endo-Steel internal structure (ENDO). As opposed to IS or Clan battlemechs, these modifications CANNOT be changed in a Clan omnimech. It is simply not possible to forego the FF armor in order to free space for other equipment, and even the locations of the armor's critical slots is fixed within the mech's components. That is, you cannot force ENDO slots to move to a different location, even if there is still available critical space elsewhere in the mech. Wherever those critical slots are allocated in the mech's omnipods, they will remain allocated no matter what.

Another consideration is locked equipment. Consider again, the SHC-PRIME. This mech carries six (6) jump jets, and those are locked into its omnipods. Every SHC right leg and left leg has two (2) jump jets in it, and every side torso has one(1), and they cannot be moved to any other location on the mech. They cannot be removed altogether, either. Many a player has opined (myself included) that the SHC would be considerably more lethal if it were possible to remove some of those jump jets to free some weight, but it simply is not possible.

Another example of locked equipment is the Arctic Cheetah. This Clan omnimech has an XL 240 engine, which cannot be altered. As previously discussed, this means that the engine contains nine (9) heat sinks (240/25=9.6, -> 9). Every Arctic Cheetah variant in MWO has a tenth required heat sink locked in the left torso omnipod, which cannot be moved or removed even if another heat sink is installed elsewhere in the mech. It might be favorable to mount that heat sink in a leg, for instance, but that is simply not possible.

Battlemechs, whether they be IS or Clan, may be switched between modifications at the player's discretion, though every switch will incur a cost in CBills regardless of how many times it had been performed previously. That is, if you change the structure on your HBK-4G to ENDO, you will have to pay for that. To switch it back to standard, you will have to pay again. If you subsequently change back to ENDO again, you will have to pay AGAIN. For this reason, it is HIGHLY recommended that players plan their builds first with Smurfy or Li Song Mech Lab, in order that they avoid unnecessary CBill costs in testing mech builds. (Links to those third-party mech lab applications may be found elsewhere in the TRAINING GROUNDS forum.)

Battlemechs have DYNAMIC structure and armor critical slot allocation, when using FF or ENDO. That is, slots allocated to either will move automatically when any item is installed in their location, so long as sufficient free space exists SOMEWHERE within the battlemech. For Clan battlemechs, as with Clan omnimechs, ENDO and FF take up 7 critical slots each. For IS battlemechs, the critical space cost is 14 slots each.

Also, note that single and double heat sinks are modifications, which cost CBills to swap between on a mech. That modification is fixed on Clan omnimechs, but not on Clan or IS battlemechs. If a mech is equipped with DHS, then it may ONLY install DHS. If the heat sink type is single, then ONLY single heat sinks may be installed. Heat sinks MAY NOT be mixed by type on the same mech.

Artemis IV Fire Control System is a modification that may be installed on and removed from ANY mech in the game. It incurs a significant CBill cost every time it is swapped, just like FF and ENDO and DHS. However, Artemis IV does not occupy weight or space within the mech. Rather, it affects the size, weight, and cost of non-Streak missile launchers in the mech. Artemis-enabled missile launchers are separate items from non-Artemis launchers, so changing a mech from standard to Artemis means potentially having to buy all new launchers, and Artemis-enabled launchers cost much more than standard launchers. Also, the ammunition for Artemis-enabled launchers is separate from that for standard launchers, so that will need to be purchased as well. While it weighs the same and occupies the same space, it is significantly more expensive than non-Artemis ammunition.

Artemis IV FCS is equipped on the entire battlemech, and on the omnimech's CT (for all intents and purposes). In the case of an omnimech, moving an omnipod onto a mech with Artemis automatically equips that omnipod's missile hard points (if any) for Artemis. This had previously incurred additional cost to the player, but that has been addressed recently by the game's developer. Moving an omnipod with missile hard points between Artemis and non-Artemis omnimechs no longer incurs a CBill cost.

Artemis IV FCS will be discussed in detail in a later chapter.

A LATER CHAPTER

Spoiler

As promised, here comes a brief discussion of Artemis IV Fire Control System (henceforth, simply "Artemis"). The pros and cons of Artemis are discussed in FAR greater detail in the Guides and Strategies forum, where there are numerous posts on the topics of LRMs, SRMs, and even Artemis itself. This section will cover the basic considerations for mech building, as opposed to the broader or finer points of its value in combat.

Artemis is a system developed for making missiles fire more accurately. Its practical effect in MWO is, that it makes missile groups smaller. Missiles don't all hit the exact same spot, but rather have a spread, similar to a shotgun's spread pattern, around the point at which they were fired. This is true of LRMs (guided) and SRMs (unguided), but NOT of Streak SRMs which are guided, and almost guaranteed to all hit, but follow a different procedure for determining hit locations). Artemis DOES offer some benefits for Streak SRMs, though, so it may be wise to equip any mech with Artemis, that fires only Streak SRMs as missile weapons.

First, about the missiles themselves. Short-Range Missiles, or SRMs (properly 'rockets', actually), are dumb-fired, line-of-sight weapons, which incur 2.15 damage each (IS) or 2.0 damage each (Clan), and are fired from launchers that can produce volleys of 2, 4, or 6 at a time. Both IS and Clan SRMs have a nominal maximum range of 270 meters (same for IS Streak SRMs, but Clan Streak SRMs have a max range of 330 meters). Again, with the exception of Streak types, SRMs are unguided; they must be fired directly at a target, and with a lead on moving targets.

Long-Range Missiles, or LRMs, are command-guided and do not require line-of-sight. Firing LRMs properly requires a target 'lock', which in turn requires that the firing mech, a mech friendly to the firing mech, or a UAV belonging to the firing mech's team, have line-of-sight to the target, or that the target be designated by a NARC missile beacon. Both Clan and IS LRMs do 1.0 damage per missile, and are fired from launchers with volleys of 5, 10, 15, or 20 missiles. The target lock must be maintained in order for the missiles to hit. HOWEVER, if that lock is lost, and then reacquired while the missiles are still in flight, they missiles will begin tracking the locked target again. If there is no lock when missiles are fired, they will simply fly to the point in space at which the mech's crosshairs were pointed when they fired (and in this way, they MAY be dumb-fired at a shut-down or ECM-protected target). If the lock is lost while missiles are in flight, they will continue toward the last position at which the target WAS locked, regardless of its vector in 3D space at that time. LRMs have a 1000 meter nominal max range. Further, they have a 180m minimum range. Within that range, IS LRMs will produce 0 damage on impact, and Clan LRMs will produce a greatly reduced damage.

Any missile fired will self-destruct upon reaching its maximum range (and the children thank you for not littering their home world with unexploded ordnance). Naturally, launchers with larger volley capacities will be bigger and heavier, and will have a longer 'cooldown' ('reload', if you like) period. LRMs get 180 missiles per ton of ammo, and SRMs (including Streaks) get 100 missiles per ton. Multiple launchers may be equipped on a mech, and different types (SRM, SSRM, LRM) and sizes (2, 4, or 6, or 5, 10, 15, or 20) may be equipped on the same mech. Mixing launcher sizes for the same type is often frowned upon, though, as the different cooldown times lead to inefficient use of the smaller launchers or de-synchronized firing of the lot.

One more note: Clan and IS SRMs fire identically, but their LRMs fire quite differently. IS LRMs fire like all SRMs, which is to say that the launcher fires all of its missiles at once, together, in a volley. Clan LRMs fire all of their missiles in rapid succession, in a 'stream' of missiles, if you will. Anti-Missile Systems (AMS) may be slightly more effective against Clan LRMs, therefore, than against their IS counterparts. AMS will be discussed later.

So, Artemis, you say? Sure! Consider that, with a given radius for the spread of missiles (which should be constant from 0-270m for SRMs, and 180-1000m for LRMs), if that spread is centered on a target, it is possible that some of the missiles in the spread pattern will simply not hit their target. These missiles are therefore wasted, as is the heat and cooldown time spent on firing them. If 1 of every 5 LRMs you fire misses its target, then that amounts to 36 missiles per ton of LRM ammo, or every fifth whole ton, that incurs no damage. As tonnage is at a premium in most mechs, this needs to be addressed. And that is what Artemis does.

Artemis simply tightens the spread for LRMs and SRMs. Further, when the Artemis-equipped firing mech has line-of-sight to its target, lock-on times are reduced for LRMs and Streak SRMs. So, what's the down side?

The down side is, that Artemis missile launchers (except for Streak SRMs installed in Artemis-equipped mechs) are heavier, bigger, and more expensive. Also, they require different ammunition, which is ALSO more expensive. Each Artemis-equipped launcher weighs one ton more than its non-Artemis counterpart, and weighs one ton more than its non-Artemis counterpart. Artemis-compatable ammunition gives the same number of missiles per ton. Heat and cooldown times are identical between Artemis and non-Artemis launchers.

Beyond that, there is little else to know. Deciding on Artemis or non-Artemis for a missiles-equipped mech is up to the player. One must decide if the tighter spread (and ideally, more focused damage output) is worth the additional space and weight. Typically, a missile boat would prefer Artemis launchers, and a direct-fire mech with additional missile weapons might forego Artemis. IF the mech's only missile weapons are Streak SRM launchers, however, it may be worth the price in CBills to Artemis-equip the mech--this incurs NO additional weight/space penalties, and the ammunition is no different.

Something else to consider if building a missile-carrying mech, is the Active Probe ('Beagle' Active Probe, for IS mechs). Active Probe ('AP' henceforth) reduces lock-on times, speeds target information gathering, extends maximum sensor range, and most importantly, counters enemy ECM within a short radius. Especially for mechs designed to hunt and kill enemy light mechs, the AP is a MUST-HAVE. IS AP weighs 1.5 tons and occupies 2 critical slots, and Clan AP is 1 ton and 1 slot. This is mostly required equipment for LRM mechs, too. More information on AP, ECM, and other support equipment, will follow in another installment.

To be clear, even if a launcher is cooled-down ('loaded', you might say), its ammo cannot explode if the launcher is destroyed by critical hit. Ammunition in the designated location in the mech, however, may. All missile ammunition is explosive, even NARC.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

I'll bet you thought I had hung this up, right? NOPE! New info in OP coming in the next hour-ish, give or take.

Latest topic? Weights and weight classes, overview...

EDIT: Tomorrow... Insomnia is weird...

Edited by Sister RAbbi, 25 June 2016 - 12:21 AM.