38 replies to this topic

[northpow]

I've been playing for a few months now, and I have 398 kills, but not a single headshot. I guess it isn't that surprising since the head has plenty of armor/internal structure compared with its size.

Still, I'd like to get at least a few for fun and achievements.

So I have a few questions:
1. Do any of you actually *try* for headshots or do you just get them by accident sometimes?
2. For those of you who try for headshots, do you look at blueprints and memorize where the heads are? It doesn't always seem to be graphically obvious (e.g. Atlas where it's near an eye).
3. Any tips for increasing my chances?

Thanks!

[DrRedCoat]

Frankly, a lot of my headshots are either accidents or against AFK/shutdown mechs. Personally, I feel like aiming for the head is not worth the effort but if you really want to get headshots, I'd turn my sensitivity down, get advanced zoom, and mount two gauss rifles. Anything less to the head is often not enough to finish it.

[p4r4g0n]

Personally, it depends on the mech and the distance. Some mechs have cockpits that are a lot easier to see than others and given the generally small size of the cockpit, trying for a cockpit shot at long distance is usually an extremely low probability shot.

Check out this thread for cockpit locations then go to the Academy or Testing Grounds to get a realistic feel for the size of the cockpit.

Note that a fully armoured cockpit requires >33 (18 armour, 15 internal structure) points of damage for a kill.

Best chance to kill requires pinpoint, front loaded damage i.e. ballistics and you still usually need at least 2 shots at it for the kill unless you are packing a dual ac20, 4XAC10 build or something.

Lasers while pinpoint are damage over time weapons and usually the pilot will twist away denying full damage to the cockpit. Usually you get a cockpit kill with lasers on mechs with less than full armour, an already damaged cockpit, an afk/disconnect or someone who does not realize what you are aiming for and does not twist.

[no one]

1. I actually actively avoid placing damage on cockpit of 'Mechs normally because it's normally wasted damage.

2. Yes, I try to know cockpit locations. Sometimes I try to poke an eye out on someone who's holding still for fun.

3. Realistically the only thing you're going to pull an off the cuff head-caps with is a pair of Gauss rifles. Maybe a couple PPCs if their head armor is low. If you're determined, careful and willing to take damage while you line up the shot you can take out heads with wads of small pulse lasers.

[S 0 L E N Y A]

I also do not actively chase them.
If the opportunity is there, so be it.
Majority of the headshot kills I have are accidental.
I might do it on a shutdown or disco.
The only time I will "chase" a headshot is if the head is already severely damaged and just needs a nudge to pop it.

[IraqiWalker]

northpow, on 16 June 2016 - 04:13 PM, said:

I've been playing for a few months now, and I have 398 kills, but not a single headshot. I guess it isn't that surprising since the head has plenty of armor/internal structure compared with its size.

Still, I'd like to get at least a few for fun and achievements.

So I have a few questions:
1. Do any of you actually *try* for headshots or do you just get them by accident sometimes?
2. For those of you who try for headshots, do you look at blueprints and memorize where the heads are? It doesn't always seem to be graphically obvious (e.g. Atlas where it's near an eye).
3. Any tips for increasing my chances?

Thanks!

1- Unless the enemy is standing still for ridiculous amounts of time: No.
2- Yes, Things like Tamerlin's Hitbox Localization Thread are an amazing resource to help with hitboxes in general. 9 times out of 10, the head hitbox is in the central panel of the cockpit. In the case of the Atlas, and Commando, the Cockpit is in the eye socket. In the case of the Cataphract, it is REALLY obvious where it is. Hit the centermost panel, and you have a decent chance of getting a headshot.

However, since landing a headshot in the middle of an active snipe fest, or brawl is like riding on horseback, doing a backflip, to hit a bullet, with an arrow from your bow, while you're blindfolded, and traveling at warp speed, it's usually better to focus on the sections you want to destroy.

The good news is that if you are focusing the CT, any attempted headshots that miss the hitbox, but still hit the mech, are very likely going to redirect damage to the CT.

3- Gauss Rifles are your friends, and possibly the best at it. Lasers can help too. My DWF-Prime gets accidental headshots by virtue of the 2 gauss + too many lazors.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

no one, on 16 June 2016 - 04:50 PM, said:

1. I actually actively avoid placing damage on cockpit of 'Mechs normally because it's normally wasted damage.

2. Yes, I try to know cockpit locations. Sometimes I try to poke an eye out on someone who's holding still for fun.

3. Realistically the only thing you're going to pull an off the cuff head-caps with is a pair of Gauss rifles. Maybe a couple PPCs if their head armor is low. If you're determined, careful and willing to take damage while you line up the shot you can take out heads with wads of small pulse lasers.

A lot of this...

When I got the H-H-Headshot! achievement, it was with a lucky air strike on old Caustic Valley. :/

The headshot is only worthwhile if you know it's gonna kill. Otherwise, unless you can repeat it, you've wasted whatever damage you just did (and the time you spent doing it, and the cooldown on your weapons, and the heat you generated) doing damage to a component that is highly unlikely to be damaged again in that match.

But if you just GOTTA get that achievement, then yeah. Go check out the hitbox localization thread, then go practice headshots in the Mechwarrior Academy (the Targeting Practice event 'D' requires three headshots to complete, and presents a wider variety of IS mechs than does the Testing Grounds). Pretty much, you'll want a dual-Gauss mech to do it. So get good at protecting those Gauss rifles, too.

[darkcyd]

Head is a small target, you will never hit a moving head reliably. These things being a given, your best odds are a shutdown. The best way to get a shutdown is flamers. So you need 2-3 flamers and 6+ IS med's or 5 clan ER meds...or some damage equivalence. Either way, the list of mechs than can do this is pretty large....just keep moving until they shutdown from shooting you. Point at the yellow glass and alpha. Not all that hard really.

[TooDumbToQuit]

Since I've never died from a head shot, it is the first place i cut armor if needed.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

LikeUntoGod, on 16 June 2016 - 08:47 PM, said:

Since I've never died from a head shot, it is the first place i cut armor if needed.

With certain weights, it's pretty common. Full armor on a 35-tonner (IS with ferro), gives you 6 extra points IIRC. You'll come out to .2 or .7 tons. Cut six points, and you're at .0 or .5, and that allows you to fit another JJ or half-ton of ammo, or whatever. Those six usually come off the head on, say a Jenner. (Raven isn't an issue unless you're using the LA for something... but what freak does that?!) (Yeah, BoomChicken, I know. Just sayin'. ) There's another that always comes in 2 points over, and I usually scrape that off the head as well.

I WILL NOT go under 10 head armor, to be sure. And I'm usually not comfortable with less than 17. But sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do. Means it's slightly easier on SOME mechs to get that headshot kill. But at 17 points head armor, it still requires a pretty lucky crit roll to get a dual-Gauss one-shot kill.

[mailin]

I typically run between 4 and 6 points on cockpit armor. In nearly 4 years of playing I've only been headshotted half a dozen times (if that).

[SnagaDance]

Some mechs can be easier to headshot from a different angle. For instance, most of my headshots (and I have precious few) have been made versus Timberwolves from a higher elevation. All of a sudden that cockpit hitbox is rather in the middle of the CT when viewed from above.

[The Basilisk]

There are some things you can do to enhance the probabilitys of headshots.
-- No brainer: be aware of the head hitboxes and their orientation on enemy mechs.
-- Shutdown mechs are a gamble. Hitboxes on shutdown mechs tend to be distorted or outright "away" from the mech you see. Especialy when he jumped before or during shutdown.
-- Mech beeing unaware to you aiming ER Lasers or LRMs are your safest bet.
( Shadowcats or Catapults still are the easyest to behead)
-- Timberwolves are alergic to "nosescratching" (move up and down your laser over the nose of an Timby while he is laservomiting)
-- Warhawks are especially vulnerable from below.

[epikt]

A friend of mine is actively chasing headshots with his Nova (6 SPLas, 4 MG and 6 flamers). He overheat his victim and then carefully aim at the cockpit. He's grinding the Guillotine achievement that way.

Personally all my headshots are luck. I roughly aim at the "center" of the mech and/or where the head is. If I get the head, good. If I don't I get the CT. But I rarely pilot headshot-friendly mechs.

Edited by epikt, 17 June 2016 - 02:09 AM.

[habu86]

Even beyond the sheer difficulty of nailing a small target, connection lag can also serve to further mess up your shots, spreading them over other components. Still, even if you're not going for headshots, when shooting CT, it may be worth throwing firepower in the cockpit's general direction in order to blind/confuse/intimidate your opponent and keep them from returning fire effectively.

[B L O O D W I T C H]

LikeUntoGod, on 16 June 2016 - 08:47 PM, said:

Since I've never died from a head shot, it is the first place i cut armor if needed.

That WILL change once you get into tier 3-1.

I go for headshots on shutdown mechs (if i get a clean alpha on it), also if i am running dual 20is and dual gauss i aim for the cockpit.

Also, with a grid iron (gauss) i go for cockpits on certain mechs ( hunchies, shadowhawks, kodiaks, battlemasters, shadowcats and some more) two hits in a short period of time and the player is tilted for the rest of the game. Worst case, i hit the centertorso. Grid iron allows and addtional mech mod which i slot with advance zoom ( i don't do that on mechs with only 2 slots) it makes shoots a lot easier. i usually get 1-3 headshots every ten games with that. sometimes non, sometimes two headshots in a single game.

My battlemasterderp with wubs also tries for cockpit shoots on equal trades (like a battlemaster vs battlemaster staredown showdown).

Doesn't work on wobbling mechs ofc, if it wobbles like a dragon you have no chance of placing a headshot effectively.

---

And before anyone asks, i do that for fun. It is far more effective to go for CT flat or XL check mechs.

Edited by LOADED, 17 June 2016 - 02:48 AM.

[PhoenixFire55]

Well, first of all you gotta know where the head hitbox is and actually aim for it.

Then you gotta have weaponry that does pinpoint damage (i.e. Gauss, IS ACs, PPCs). Unless both you and the enemy is perfectly stationary you'll never be able to hold lasers on the head etc., and needless to say spread damage weapons like SRMs and LBXs can't concentrate their damage on the small head hitbox even at point blank.

Last thing is that your pinpoint alpha damage should be 30+. Fully armored head has 15 structure + 18 armor = 33 hit points, thus you can only head-shot something with one shot if your alpha is sufficient. For example dual Gauss rifle builds have an alpha of 30, but Gauss (like all weapons) can crit, increasing the total dealt damage so that you can actually breach that 33 and kill a mech in 1 shot. This is important because hitting a small head hitbox on a moving target is always luck (chances increase proportional to your skill, but several latency/hitreg issues still make it more random), thus you'll be able to do it rarely as is, and if your first hit on the head isn't enough then chances you'll be able to hit the head again in any near future are rather low.

Anyway, if you really care about making headshots then assemble a Clan mech with 2xGauss+2xERPPC and a big enough targeting computer to boost ERPPC velocity to closely match that of a Gauss and learn to fire Gauss (needs charge) and PPCs at the same time. This way you'll be able to do 50 pinpoint damage to pretty much any location you want. That is enough to one-shot most lights and XL engine mediums in a torso, let alone in the head. Practice aiming for the head and you'll be getting lots of headshots in no time. I was getting 3-4 headshots per day when I was running that build on a Dire (back in the day before the Gauss 5 seconds cooldown idiocy happened), but of course most of them were on silly people who thought that standing still was a good idea.

Also consider this ... some mechs have their head hitbox roughly in the middle of CT (Cataphract, Jagermech etc.), while others have it atop of the CT (Centurion, Hunchback etc.). When you are aiming for the head and miss on the former you still hit CT, while on the latter you risk missing the mech alltogether.

[jss78]

I have about 3300 games played, and a grand total of 7 headshots. I remember my first that go me the Headshot! achievement -- I was in a dual-PPC BJ-3, peering over the caldera at old Caustic Valley. The others have been either lucky shots with a dual-gauss Jager or air strikes. I don't play many mechs with that kind of pinpoint damage, so they're really, really rare.

I also really rarely die to headshots, once several hundred games or so. And I routinely both reduce head armour to ~10 points, and store ammo in the head too. I chuckle at the thought of running a setup like this in tabletop Battletech.

[Morggo]

My handful of headshots are mostly "lucky attempts".. meaning, on occasion if opportunity presents itself (like say a Madcat pops around a corner and is staring right at me... it worked... once.. ) I'll aim for the magic box but 99.9% hit CT anyway. So while I sometimes do attempt a headshot, it's pretty much always worked out more due to luck from landing in the general vicinity.

I think my best one was the only one I've gotten in many months and was actually last weekend. Bog run, we were up maybe a mech but they started pressing. Drop CO calledout "King, D5(think it was there)" just as I was coming around a corner. He was too. Maybe 100meters or so... I whipped the target around, aimed sorta for the head and let loose with all 4 ML and both LBX10... thing just toppled over.. total luck but I was able to tell the DC a couple seconds after his target call "Not anymore."

(to be fair, I think his head hit box was orange or yellow too, it he'd been green his 20's would probably have wrecked me )

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Most reliable headshot machine I've used is a Nova Prime with 6 flamers and 6 small pulse lasers. You run up to an enemy, light them up with flamers until they shutdown then hit their head with the 6 small pulse lasers, that will kill even maxed out head armor in a single shot.

For long range headshots you can mix 2 Gauss with 2 AC2s, they have the same projectile velocity, you just need to account for the gauss charge up. If you hit someone in the head that will do enough damage to kill max armor also.

You can also get triple IS large pulse lasers and aim for the head and if the full beam duration hits you will get a kill, though this doesn't come often since people twist a lot.


Really it requires good precision and accuracy and knowing exactly where the head hitboxes are for each mech, as most of the glass is usually just CT. I'd recommend looking up the hitboxes of mechs you see commonly on google. If you try for them they come, though its not as easy to do all the time as just hitting CT over and over but is rewarding when it works.