19 replies to this topic

[Keltan]

Edit: More questions about mechs below.

OK, here are some new player questions:

Drop decks are not clear to me. From various clues, here’s what I think I know

1. They are a collection of 4 mechs I bring into a faction play battle.
2. Since I can only play one mech at a time, I assume there is some mechanism whereby I switch mechs. What is this mechanism? When a mech is destroyed?
3. If I’m merc or loyalist,only mechs available to that grand faction (IS or Clan) in my drop deck.
4.If I’m freelance, can I have any mechs I want in my drop deck when I answer a call to arms?

So the Mastery Bundles look like pretty good deals - three mechs for $25 or so, plus premium time .they never go on sale, but occasionally they get extra premium time, so I should wait for such a bonus.

Clans don’t have any Mastery bundles, so I should buy Clan mechs with cbills first?

What is the ETA on Clan Mastery bundles? It seems many mechs still need a hero version?

Will there be a sale on buying mechs with cbills sometime soon?

(I know, it's just a guess at when Piranha will have a sale, but some guesses are pretty good.)

Are the Performance Steam packs good deals when they are on sale? Are the mechs still unable to be sold? Do they count as a variant towards getting basic and elite on pilot skills?

Edited by Keltan, 08 July 2016 - 04:28 PM.

[Dee Eight]

When a mech is destroyed you go back to dropship menu and you either drop in the next mech sequentially from the left of your deck, or one you choose. You can also choose your starting mech during the pre-game waiting period.

You can only play for one faction, so you can only load your decks with mechs that correspond to that faction's technology base (inner sphere or clan). The game doesn't care if certain mechs were exclusive to certain factions in the cannon battletech lore. But you cannot fight for clan wolf for example and have inner sphere mechs in your deck.

There is no ETA on Clan mastery bundles because there's no clan mechs at all available in both hero and champion versions. The only Hero thus far is the spirit bear kodiak, and there are no champion kodiaks. The Viper and Night Gyr are getting hero versions as is the new 50 tonner I forget the name of, but again, no champions.

The mechs you want to bring are whatever suits your play style best, and its preferred if the're ones you've fully elite skilled (if not master skilled). You also want a total tonnage as close to the drop weight limit (currently 250 tons) so as to maximize your chances. My current clan drop deck is 2 kodiaks (spirit bear and the KDK-3) and two myst lyxns (the prime(champ) and a B variant) which total exactly 250 tons. Prior to the Kodiak arrival I was using three hellbringers and a shadowcat for 240 tons total (and all with ECM).

Clanners tend to prefer speedy mechs, and IS players tend to favour ones with structural quirks to enhance their lifespan. LRMs tend to be avoided except as support weapons (ie, don't make it the primary weapon system of your mech) since the action is so fast paced, you don't really get a chance to stand and shoot. Matches are 30 mins long so you typically will only see 7 1/2 mins of play from each mech at most.

[Rhavin]

4 mechs with a combined weight of 250 tons.

You die, you choose the next mech you want to play in.

Yes, if you are fighting for a clan you take clan mechs, if you are fighting for an innersphere house you bring IS mechs. Same thing if you are a freelancer and answer a call to arms. You can't mix mechs from clan and innersphere in your dropdeck.

Best real money investment for clan mechs is an ebon jaguar pack at 90 bucks. It has all the mechs you need, with mechbays, plus premium time, cockpit items and camos and 9 colors when you activate your choice of three Faction packs. All of the mechs are solid, and are great in FW Invasions, Scouting or in Quick play.

Mastery bundles can be a great deal , have to judge them on a per mech basis though. Some of the heros are great, some are not. I personally don't see mastery bundles being released in tge future though. The store packs above are not bad either. Even without preorder bonuses at 20 bucks the warhammer and Maurader are pretty solid in FW. You get premium time with them as well. You dont get the hero though unless you spend extra.

I know nothing about steam packs.

Edited by Rhavin, 23 June 2016 - 02:19 PM.

[S 0 L E N Y A]

If you have the c-bills for an entire drop deck, why spend real cash?

There are the invasion clan packs, they are kinda spendy but you get a lot with them.

Nobody knows when sales will hit, but more often than not they are MC or Cash only sales.

The Steam packs are also kind of expensive, but both mechs come with a c-bil boost and are both solid mechs. Kind of odd in the sense that it is one IS and one Clan mech. They dont help THAT much as far as getting a solid drop deck.

[Jables McBarty]

Keltan, on 23 June 2016 - 01:19 PM, said:

Will there be a sale on buying mechs with cbills sometime soon?

(I know, it's just a guess at when Piranha will have a sale, but some guesses are pretty good.)

As I recall, last sale was end of December. So....

Quote

Are the Performance Steam packs good deals when they are on sale? Are the mechs still unable to be sold? Do they count as a variant towards getting basic and elite on pilot skills?

I'd only suggest buying them when they are on sale. I bought the Heavy set soon after I started playing (on sale), and it's ended up being a mixed bag.

If you are looking for straight performance, I'd say look at the Mastery Bundles or the $20/$40 collections in the Store (Marauder, Warhammer, Kodiak, etc). They'll give you more 'mech for less money, and you get enough variants to master the chassis. With the Steam Bundles, you have to buy 4 more variants (+2 for each chassis) to master the two chassis.

If you are looking to maximize Cbill earnings, then it might be worthwhile to go Steam, as you get two +Cbills 'mechs. With the heavy pack, I'd have to spend $55 to get the +Cbills Timber Wolf, and either buy a TDR hero for MC or a Mastery Bundle to get the +Cbills Bolt. And you cannot sell either of the 'mechs you get from the bundle.

The bundles do have some nice peripherals though. You get a pretty solid amount of MC (1500 for Light through 4000 for Assault; I'd suggest holding onto it for future 'MechBay purchases), and a decent bag of Cbills to customize your new 'mechs. The permanent Phranken patterns only apply to the two chassis you buy (if you buy another TBR or TDR, it'll work on those, but not on a MAD or WHM). But the colors you can apply to all 'mechs. So if you like black and red, you're in business.

Honestly, the important thing is that you get what you want for your money. What 'mechs do you like to play?



Coda: I've played a bunch on my TBR, but never bought the other two variants. Last week, I finally bought my second TBR, and also picked up my TDR which I hardly played after basicking. Though I never took to the TDR, and have found I prefer my MDD to my TBR, I'm glad I got the bundle as I really liked the colors, and I ended up using the MC to buy the Pirate's Bane and Oxide when they were on sale--two of my favorite 'mechs.

[Keltan]

Jables McBarty, on 23 June 2016 - 02:52 PM, said:

The bundles do have some nice peripherals though. You get a pretty solid amount of MC (1500 for Light through 4000 for Assault; I'd suggest holding onto it for future 'MechBay purchases), and a decent bag of Cbills to customize your new 'mechs. The permanent Phranken patterns only apply to the two chassis you buy (if you buy another TBR or TDR, it'll work on those, but not on a MAD or WHM). But the colors you can apply to all 'mechs. So if you like black and red, you're in business.

Honestly, the important thing is that you get what you want for your money. What 'mechs do you like to play?

I seem to prefer Lights, both the Arctic Cheetah and the Locust. Don't do very well in Assaults or Heavies. Don't like the shadowcat. Don't like Gauss Rifles.

Prefer high mounts.

Leaning towards the Light Performance Pack for now.

[Jables McBarty]

Keltan, on 24 June 2016 - 05:47 AM, said:

I seem to prefer Lights, both the Arctic Cheetah and the Locust. Don't do very well in Assaults or Heavies. Don't like the shadowcat. Don't like Gauss Rifles.

Prefer high mounts.

Leaning towards the Light Performance Pack for now.

For lights, here is your "counter-offer:"

Raven Mastery Pack: $21
-Hero Hugginn (+Cbills and unique skin)
-RVN-3L(C) (champion mech with +30% XP
-RVN-4x
-30 Days Premium Time
-1 cockpit item

and/or

Wave III Tier 1 - Arctic Cheetah ($30)
-ACH-Prime(I) (+30% cbills and unique skin)
-ACH-A
-ACH-B
-1 title, 1 badge,
-Choose 1 of 4 faction content pack. Includes a skin for all of your Arctic cheetahs, 3 colors, and 3 cockpit items
-Note that this one does not have Premium Time

Steam Light Performance Pack ($18 sale price)
-RVN-3L(S) (+Cbills, same build as the Champion)
-ACH-Prime(S) (+Cbills)
-Phranken pattern for all Arctic Cheetahs and Ravens you will ever own
-3 colors
-30 days premium time
-1500MC to spend on MechBays, cosmetics, or heroes
-2.5M Cbills

Honestly, unless you have a major hard-on for one over the other, looks like the Steam pack is a pretty solid deal for lights.
-The $30 ACH pack gets you more 'mechs, but you miss out on the Premium Time. It gives you the same number of colors (3), and one fewer permanent pattern than the Steam Pack. Also, of the 3, only 1 is +Cbills.
-The $21 RVN bundle also gets you more 'mechs, but you miss out on the colors and the camo spec. It gives you the same amount of Premium Time. Of the 3, only 1 is +Cbills, though another is +XP (of debatable long-term utility).
-Buying 30 Days Premium Time alone is $12, so if you want the PT anyway, the Steam bundle is $6 more and gives you lots of stuff. And considering that $7 in MC nets you only 1250MC from the store, I'd say it's probably worth it.

Final note, if you use the 1500MC from the Steam bundle to buy 5 'MechBays at 300MC apiece (or 10 at the 50% sale price that happens every 6-12 months), you will have enough 'mech bays to master both the ACH and the RVN.

Lol, I might pick up that Steam bundle too....I already have 3 ACH, but it never hurts to have a +Cbills 'mech lying around...

EDIT: Note that the Premium Time in both the Mastery and the Steam bundles are "Active" PT. That means it gives you 30 days from date of purchase (or first login after purchase). Most PT is "Banked" which means it isn't active until you activate it. And because of that I've decided not to get the Light Steam Pack, simply because I am moving in a week and may not have interwebs for 2-3 weeks. Something to be aware of.

Edited by Jables McBarty, 24 June 2016 - 06:35 AM.

[Keltan]

I bought the Light Performance Pack but don't see a key on the Games Library page. Do I need to install the game from Steam to use the DLC? I thought I would just get a key, since there's a big REDEEM KEY button in the UI.

Edit: Installed via Steam. Playing through Steam I logged onto my account and the game automagically found the DLC and installed it.

Edited by Keltan, 25 June 2016 - 06:42 AM.

[Rogue Jedi]

if you want Lights in Faction play bear in mind the minimum tonnage for invasion mode is 160, so it is not possible to take 4 Lights, however you can go 4 35 ton Lights + 1 55+ ton Mech, or a mix of the lighter Light Mechs and 1-2 heavier Mechs, e.g. to take 3 20 ton Locusts the 4th Mech would have to be a 100 ton Atlas or King Crab ^{(the only Inner Sphere 100 ton Mechs)} to get you to a total of 160 tons.

Faction Play also includes scouting mode, where Light Mechs are really useful


many people will not be happy with you for taking a mostly Light Mech dropdeck for invasion, but ultimately do what you think you will have most fun and perform best with.
if you do not like heavier Mechs do not try to fill the full 250, any combination of Mechs between 160 and 250 is valid, many people do perform better with the heavier Mechs but some do not, and finding "your" Mech will be a big part of enjoying MWO, the majority of players have a few favorate chassis,
Unfortunately I cannot tell you what Mech you will fall in love with, there are many which based on past chassis preferences I should like but do not, for example the Griffin is one of my favourites, and there are variants of the Wolverine which are near identical in terms of stats, ^{(tonnage, speed, agility, twist speed and distance, hard points ect)} but I just do not like the Wolverine

Before the release of the Marauder and Warhammer ^{(in my opinion by far the most fun and of the IS Heavies among the effective Mechs in the game)} I would usually take 2 Lights, a Griffin and a Battlemaster because I did better and had more fun with that combination than the "meta" decks using mostly heavy Mechs which most people used, however by now for me 1 MAD and 2 WHMs and ether an FS9 or SDR are my usual IS invasion mode deck.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

Keltan, on 23 June 2016 - 01:19 PM, said:

OK, here are some new player questions:

Drop decks are not clear to me. From various clues, here’s what I think I know

1. They are a collection of 4 mechs I bring into a faction play battle.
2. Since I can only play one mech at a time, I assume there is some mechanism whereby I switch mechs. What is this mechanism? When a mech is destroyed?
3. If I’m merc or loyalist,only mechs available to that grand faction (IS or Clan) in my drop deck.
4.If I’m freelance, can I have any mechs I want in my drop deck when I answer a call to arms?

So the Mastery Bundles look like pretty good deals - three mechs for $25 or so, plus premium time .they never go on sale, but occasionally they get extra premium time, so I should wait for such a bonus.

Clans don’t have any Mastery bundles, so I should buy Clan mechs with cbills first?

What is the ETA on Clan Mastery bundles? It seems many mechs still need a hero version?

Will there be a sale on buying mechs with cbills sometime soon?

(I know, it's just a guess at when Piranha will have a sale, but some guesses are pretty good.)

Are the Performance Steam packs good deals when they are on sale? Are the mechs still unable to be sold? Do they count as a variant towards getting basic and elite on pilot skills?

Thanks for asking, by the way, before venturing out into the world of Faction Warfare. Not everyone does, and a lot of the game's ragequit and naysaying comes from folks who don't bother to tap the helpful folks of this forum for info before diving head-first into the deep end of the pool (which is FW).

So, YES, your drop deck is a set of FOUR mechs. It can be any mix of OWNED and TRIAL mechs. The combined weight of the four mechs is limited. Currently, I believe the limit is 250 tons per side (IS and Clan), but it IS subject to change at any time on short notice from PGI. It's been as low as 240 and as high as 260 for either side, since I've been playing FW just last August/September.

The swap mechanic CAN be that the mech is destroyed, but you ALSO have the option to EJECT from your mech. I think the default is to press and hold 'K'. At that point, the mech is considered destroyed for all intents and purposes, and cannot be reused during that match even if it was in otherwise pristine condition. The dropship that brings you in to the fight, has a 30-second pattern. Every 30 seconds, it CAN drop any pilots aboard in their next mechs. Once you eject, or your mech is destroyed, you return to the dropship (as long as you have at least one mech remaining in your drop deck). Once you select your next mech to drop, you get in the queue for the next drop, on that 30-second cycle. That cycle runs constantly, so when you return to the dropship, you may have 29 seconds to wait, or only 3, or whatever.

No matter if you're a merc, loyalist, or freelancer, you must use all four mechs of the same tech base (IS or Clan) without exception. Okay, there's ONE exception, but it's a BUG, and while I've pitched that video around elsewhere, we'll not discuss it. Much. The bug DID put a teammate in a Trial Commando for his first mech to drop, after which the next three mechs were all Clan mechs from his drop deck. We are a merc unit, and were on a FRR contract at the time. That sowed some confusion with our Clan enemies, I can tell you. Our previous contract had been Clan, and the player had not yet reset his drop deck to IS mechs. The bug occurred when he went Scouting first, and had his mech reset to a IS trial (default was the Trial COM). The bug allowed him into an Invasion match with that, and the remainder of his deck was his previous Clan deck.

Thought I said I wasn't going to discuss that. DAMN.

So, to #4, you must use mechs that match the tech base of the call-to-arms that you are answering, regardless. Freelance, loyalist, or merc. Matters not.

MASTERY BUNDLES?! They're a GREAT deal! User Virlutris has a great listing of the bundles, and their relative values versus the full cash/MC/CBill prices for the components. I believe there's even a link to the Smurfy of each build, too, for reference. But there are currently no CLAN ones available. The reason is simple: There's no single Clan mech for which we have both a Champion and Hero variant. YET.

Eventually we WILL likely get champion variants of mechs like Kodiak, Viper, Night Gyr, and Huntsman, for which there are or will be hero mechs. And many Clan mechs DO have Champion variants, but no HERO. Past couple of town hall meetings, I've been hoping to get Russ to address the matter of releasing individual hero variants for mech chassis that do not currently have them, but I'm stupid and get ignored (sometimes rightfully so, I might admit).

Seriously, though, it's encouraging that the Butterbee is out now. That's the first standalone hero for an existing chassis that we've seen in FOREVER. It's been a year or longer, I think. None of the Clan Wave or Resistance package mechs have had a hero variant yet, nor has the Urbanmech. That's a lot of mechs, and a lot of monetization that PGI is missing out on. Just the package mechs alone, we're talking about 24 more hero variants (and therefore, 24 more MASTERY PACKS) that can be released and monetized. Urbbanmech makes 25.

IMPORTANT ADVICE! MASTERY bundles are SUPER for quickly building a solid FW drop deck. I'd recommend looking at a 65-ton heavy mech first. IS gives you the Thunderbolt, Catapult, and Jagermech to choose from. All three are good now (rescale made the Catapult much better, but the post-rescale ratings haven't really settled in just yet... Nonetheless put the CPLT-Jester hero among the top few IS heavy laser vomit mechs). That fills in 3 of the 4 mechs in your drop deck, and also pumps 30 days of premium time into your account to accelerate the leveling of your new mechs. From there, go to a medium like Griffin or Shadow Hawk, or even lighter to the Hunchback. Any one is solid, and pretty decent for improving the skills in quick play as well. Griffin 3M is perhaps the best medium brawler in the game, PERIOD. Shadow Hawk brings some serious high torso mounted dakka capability, and a dakka-missile-brawler build or two as well. Hunchback brings you some specialists, but they're good mechs and cheap to build out.

So, yeah. The point is, if you've GOT to have 4 mechs, but you need 3 of any one chassis to be able to complete the ELITE skills (and thereby double your BASIC skills) for each variant, you may as well put them in your drop deck together. Mastery Bundles do that beautifully. Also, your Premium Time gives its bonus to FW earnings just like it does to QP. Hero and Champion mech bonuses apply there, too. Tournament Supporter bonus does as well (a great deal for $10, to get that 10% buff to XP and Cbills for several months). And you earn XP in FW just like QP, so you CAN level/skill your mechs up in FW while you learn your way around. I did. A LOT. Still occasionally do.

TL;DR- Buy a mastery pack for an IS 65-tonner and 50/55-tonner, enjoy the Premium Time, assemble your drop deck, and GET REKT til you GIT GUD!

PS- Clan options? The Cauldron-Born pack of the Clan Wave 3 is a solid pick, with a GOOD Clan heavy, one of the BEST lights in the game, and an underrated/understimated fast medium that's loads of fun to play. MAD value, and will put you together a good Clan drop deck. Or buy your some mix of TBR/SCR/EBJ/HBR/ACH with CBills to put you at or around 250 tons.

[Jables McBarty]

Keltan, on 25 June 2016 - 05:12 AM, said:

I bought the Light Performance Pack but don't see a key on the Games Library page. Do I need to install the game from Steam to use the DLC? I thought I would just get a key, since there's a big REDEEM KEY button in the UI.

Edit: Installed via Steam. Playing through Steam I logged onto my account and the game automagically found the DLC and installed it.

Glad you've figured it out. Now that Steam has loaded the package into your profile, it will always show up, even if you use the non-steam client. So if you don't like using steam, you can ditch it.

[Keltan]

Thanks for the replies!

I bought the Raven 2X, mostly because it was much cheaper than another ACH. Once in the mechlab, I try to kit it out to match a build on saw on metamechs. The cost is over 5M Cbills, bringing it back up to more than Ach would have cost! So, it's important to check the smurfy page on the build you're copying.

It looks like most of the cost is in the XL engine. So IS mechs are cheaper than clan, but if you plan on installing an XL engine, the price jumps up to match the comparable Clan mech?

As for a heavier mech to round out a drop deck, I don't know which one to buy. Stormcrow? Timberwolf? I know people target the TBR, a player suicide charged me yesterday when I was in the Trial TBR. The Battlemaster was fun, but "New players shouldn't buy assaults". Does the "Play what you like" rule cancel that out? Hmmm, the metamechs laser vomit build is 14M+ Cbills. Kind of a lot.

The Mastery bundles look like great deals, but again, I don't know which heavier mechs to buy. For cost, I'd prefer to get one of the medium bundles and none of the medium trial mechs have really grabbed me. Anyway, it can wait a while.

Oh, I have 30 days of premium time from the Steam pack. If I do buy a mastery bundle, does the premium time extend on to the end of that?

[Rhavin]

You can often share xl engines between builds to save some money. It does require unequipping and saving but it can really help out.

Yes, the clan mechs seem expensive, but once you put in an xl engine , upgrade to double heat sinks, upgrade armor and structure to free weight up you will often find you have spent enough on an innersphere mech to buy a clan mech. This is especially true when you are talking about light mechs. There are some exceptions in other weight classes (like thehunchback and thunderbolt), but some IS heavys like the black knight require a huge cbill investment to make the most effective builds.

The reason we say to avoid assaults is that they are generally harder to play well for new players, couple that with the fact that buying one assault mech and fittimg it out will blow all of your cbills and a player who decides assaults are not for them will find themselves unable to buy another mech and just get bent and quit.

Your premium time stacks. So yes , a mastery bundle purchase will tack 30 more days on to the end, whilet a Web store purchase like the warhammer, kodiak, Maurader packs will bank 30 days that you can activate whenever. In my opinion, if you need premium time you are better off buying a pack or mastery bundle as you get mechs, mech bays and the time.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

Keltan, on 28 June 2016 - 06:20 AM, said:

Thanks for the replies!

I bought the Raven 2X, mostly because it was much cheaper than another ACH. Once in the mechlab, I try to kit it out to match a build on saw on metamechs. The cost is over 5M Cbills, bringing it back up to more than Ach would have cost! So, it's important to check the smurfy page on the build you're copying.

It looks like most of the cost is in the XL engine. So IS mechs are cheaper than clan, but if you plan on installing an XL engine, the price jumps up to match the comparable Clan mech?

As for a heavier mech to round out a drop deck, I don't know which one to buy. Stormcrow? Timberwolf? I know people target the TBR, a player suicide charged me yesterday when I was in the Trial TBR. The Battlemaster was fun, but "New players shouldn't buy assaults". Does the "Play what you like" rule cancel that out? Hmmm, the metamechs laser vomit build is 14M+ Cbills. Kind of a lot.

The Mastery bundles look like great deals, but again, I don't know which heavier mechs to buy. For cost, I'd prefer to get one of the medium bundles and none of the medium trial mechs have really grabbed me. Anyway, it can wait a while.

Oh, I have 30 days of premium time from the Steam pack. If I do buy a mastery bundle, does the premium time extend on to the end of that?

First, YES, Premium time STACKS. It does NOT overlap. Some packages have the PT activated upon redemption (I think mastery bundles do this), and others you'll have to activate via the link in the game HOME screen or via this site (mwomercs.com). If you go to PROFILE > STATS, you will see your BANKED Premium Time (if any) in hours. You can activate it from there, at least 30 days at a time (not sure how to activate any smaller banked quantities, if smaller quantities even CAN be banked these days). EZPZ, except it doesn't state that in the game manual.

"Wait, WHAT game manual?!", you say?

Oh, right. Sorry. That's US.

So, Clan -vs-IS for price? Yeah. Light mechs almost ALWAYS need XL engines, most mediums do too, and some heavies use them well (as well as the BLR, with the XL 400, which is just SO fun). For any mech that needs an XL engine in the build, and does not come with that particular XL engine already, there should be little to no price difference between it and the Clan analog after kitting out.

(Sidebar: Part of the reason that the Kodiak pack was so popular, was that each and every mech in the pack has a Clan XL 400 engine in it, which is worth a metric butt-ton of CBills, and it's not like you can run all of your KDKs at the same time, so...)

That said, there ARE some good IS heavies that are fine with STD engines, and/or that are XL-friendly. Catapult is a good one (the Mastery Bundle gets you a CPLT-J which is suddenly a very good, mobile Laser Vomit heavy). Thunderbolt, too. TDRs can be plenty happy with STD engines 280-300, depending on what weapon loadouts you want in there. Sadly, Jagermechs kinda NEED XL engines to be good.

Of course, eventually you will want to have a stockpile of engines in the warehouse. XL300, XL295, XL280, are some great ones to have around. That's for a little further down the road.

ALSO, keep on top of ANY and EVERY weekend event. For instance, the past weekend's personal challenge put a LOT of extra CBills on my SpaceBucks Bank account. The last grab bag event had a BIG grand prize, that most people likely got. Among the items in the GP grab? A single XL400 engine. That's HAWT!



Keep bringing the questions!

[Keltan]

Sister RAbbi, on 28 June 2016 - 03:32 PM, said:

So, Clan -vs-IS for price? Yeah. Light mechs almost ALWAYS need XL engines, most mediums do too, and some heavies use them well (as well as the BLR, with the XL 400, which is just SO fun). For any mech that needs an XL engine in the build, and does not come with that particular XL engine already, there should be little to no price difference between it and the Clan analog after kitting out.

(Sidebar: Part of the reason that the Kodiak pack was so popular, was that each and every mech in the pack has a Clan XL 400 engine in it, which is worth a metric butt-ton of CBills, and it's not like you can run all of your KDKs at the same time, so...)

ALSO, keep on top of ANY and EVERY weekend event. For instance, the past weekend's personal challenge put a LOT of extra CBills on my SpaceBucks Bank account. The last grab bag event had a BIG grand prize, that most people likely got. Among the items in the GP grab? A single XL400 engine. That's HAWT!



Keep bringing the questions!

I dunno, the way I play assaults, I could probably get three Kodiaks locked into battle at the same time.

You asked for more questions, so here goes.

What is the number 4 painted on the hanger in my mechlab mean? When I drop the number sometimes changes to 1 or 2 or 3. What does that mean?

The map shows everybody in my lance a slightly different shade than my other teammates. When I group with a friend of mine, our group is not shown in a unique color. Is there a way to change that, so I can keep track of group members on the map?

From some older threads google found, it seems like I can leave a match after I die, and that stops the record of the battle for me. I get credit for everything that happened up to that point. If I put 80% damage on a mech, I get credit for xp for it. If I die and leave the match, then if somebody comes along and kills that mech, I wouldn't get credit for the kill assist or the Kill with most damage. Is this how leaving a match after you die works?

[Rogue Jedi]

We do not know for sure how disconnecting after death affects earnings, at one point PGI confirmed that you did not get credit for assists if you disconnect before they were earned but that could have changed, and it is impossible to verify.

As for the diferant colour, that applies to all Mechs in your Lance and it is possible to rearange the lances, you need to take company command, you can then rearange the lances to your hearts content but bear in mind if you split up a group that group will not be happy, I have had a few games where there were 2 "4 man" groups (lances where all 4 had the same unit tag), each in a Lance, someone from the third Lance took command and deliberately split up the lances so each of the gruops ended yp with people in all 3 lances, apparently just to annoy people. So if you do take command, move someone and recieve a complaint it is best to relinquish command or put the people back.

At a rough guess it changes based on the number of Mechs you have in drop, but I must admit I had never noticed that, likely because I usualy wait until the end of the match.

[Keltan]

Is the Mad Dog a good mech for a beginner? I'm asking because they are on sale currently.

Or should I keep saving for a Timby?

(Was thinking about getting a Catapult Mastery Bundle at some point, so would skip buying the Catapults with Cbills. Or are Thunderbolts a better mech to buy the Mastery Bundle?)

[Koniving]

If the sale includes cbills, jump on it. If just for MC, don't. Or stick to just getting one to start with.

Honestly I would say it about any non-hero mech and an MC price.

Far as Mad Dog for beginner? It's effectively the Clan equivalent to a Catapult and Catapult made a good starter-esque mech for me. Wouldn't really see why not since you're skipping the cbill side of getting one (my only reason for not considering it is the lack of affordability for a new player to acquire one and still have cbills left to make it yours and experiment).

[Not A Real RAbbi]

Keltan, on 08 July 2016 - 04:30 PM, said:

Is the Mad Dog a good mech for a beginner? I'm asking because they are on sale currently.

Or should I keep saving for a Timby?

(Was thinking about getting a Catapult Mastery Bundle at some point, so would skip buying the Catapults with Cbills. Or are Thunderbolts a better mech to buy the Mastery Bundle?)

Save for the Timby. MadDog isn't a particularly good heavy. There are some odd builds you can run with it (the 6xSRM6 MDD can wreck stuff, if you can get close to stuff without getting REKT that is). It's mostly the Clan heavy LRM boat. Part of the reason that LRM boats aren't popular in MWO, though, is that they're just not that effective. If you watched last night's MWOWC matches, you might've seen that when the dudes from 228th BW faced a team with a couple of LRM mechs, and they pretty quickly adjusted their tactics to render the LRMs all but ineffective, and they went on to win pretty convincingly (still a FUN match to watch, and not a STOMP by any means).

If you want to do LRMs RIGHT, the TBR is better at that than is the MDD anyhow. It may not necessarily be THE heavy mech any longer, but it's still a REALLY good one. A pair of LRM-10s and a mess of ERMLs will be nice, if you're into that sort of thing. Any other build than straight missile boat, though, the TBR does better than the MDD, PERIOD.

Of course, if you want to learn on HARD MODE, then go ahead and get you a MDD.

[Keltan]

I guess I'll wait for a sale on Timby's (or Hellbringers). Hard not to buy during a sale, though.