9 replies to this topic

[Justin Kell]

Hey Guys:

I've been playing about a month now. After experimenting with a lot of stuff, I used a Zeus for a while. Now I'm trying my hand at light mechs. Just got an Arctic Cheetah to Basic and I'm about to grab a second one and start working on basic.

I'm not sure what kind of build I should be looking at as a brand new (and pretty bad) light mech pilot, as well as any tactical advice. Any help would be much appreciated.

[Stf Sgt Marblez]

Im sure there will be other posts after this but a good start to piloting a light would be max leg armor and speed. Seeing as the Ach is an omnimech speeds not the issue, get the 6 energy setup that evryones running on em now days and you should be off to a good start. Other pilots please fill in what I left out lord knows theres a good bit

[Jay Leon Hart]

Howdy! Thanks to the way 'mech XP works, where you need 3 variants to unlock all the skills (at least until it changes early next year), make sure you grab the Prime and C variants. You'll want the Prime Left Torso and C Arms for most builds, so you may as well get the complete 'mechs to go with the Omni Pods. If you hadn't already noticed, for Omni Mechs like the Arctic Cheetah, you can buy the Arms, Torsos, Head and Legs separately and put them on any other Center Torso you own. As such, only the Center Torso really matters when deciding on which variant to choose for an Omni Mech.

As for builds, the most common are;
6x Small Lasers
6x Small Pulse Lasers
6x Medium Lasers

You may want to increase the back armour while you get used to Lights, but eventually you'll want it front loaded. The Targetting Computers can easily be swapped for another Double Heat Sink if they run too hot. For the 6x Medium Laser build, I usually drop 2 arm lasers and add some more heat sinks.

Enjoy possibly the best Light 'mech in the game

Edited by Jay Leon Hart, 20 December 2016 - 02:46 AM.

[JigglyMoobs]

There's also the Steel core build: 2xerll on ct using prime torsos.

Adv zoom module, ecm, cool shots.

As this is a pg13 forum I cannot repeat what other mech warriors say about those running this build in its intended role.

[Jay Leon Hart]

JigglyMoobs, on 21 December 2016 - 01:12 PM, said:

There's also the Steel core build: 2xerll on ct using prime torsos.

Adv zoom module, ecm, cool shots.

As this is a pg13 forum I cannot repeat what other mech warriors say about those running this build in its intended role.

I definitely don't run that on my Prime chassis... nope, not me!

[invernomuto]

If you want to try something fun, try also to equip a NARC. NARC kills grant you 10.000 C-bills each.

[Fox With A Shotgun]

I can definitely say the SPL cheetah is probably one of the most reliable ones out there.

The Cheetah, while fast and has good hitboxes, suffers from a distinct lack of cooling ability and tonnage to mount enough heatsinks for its weapons. To this end, you need to use the weapons that have the biggest damage per heat, while remaining light enough on tonnage and not exactly reliant on ammunition. Range doesn't exactly matter if you're clipping along pretty fast under ECM. You can sneak in behind enemies and unload till they're dead or you have to bug out.

Small Pulse Lasers have 2 damage per heat, which is significantly better than 1.667 for small lasers, and definitely much better than the ~1.15 for ERMLs. I would suggest running Small Pulses as these allow you to deal with virtually any enemies on the battlefield, from other lights to the back ends of assaults.

[Spheroid]

There is always the general purpose 2x mlas + 4x slas which gives you a lot of flexibility when engaging targets.

Edited by Spheroid, 22 December 2016 - 10:34 PM.

[Jay Leon Hart]

Spheroid, on 22 December 2016 - 10:34 PM, said:

There is always the general purpose 2x mlas + 4x slas which gives you a lot of flexibility when engaging targets.

I'd imagine you mount the MLs on the torso, so you can use their longer range to poke?

[JigglyMoobs]

So I've played almost 300 matches on my little Arctic Cheetah prime now and it's actually become my favorite mech to play at the moment. It's like a little James Bond that can sneak behind enemy lines and wreck absolute havoc.

I don't even have it elited (only bought 1) and it nearly matches the k/d ratio on my Timberwolves. The w/l isn't quite as good because it's harder to change a game around in a small mech but still definitely positive at 1.3 : 1 (and this is all PUGs).

Lots of fun games like this one:

Edited by JigglyMoobs, 31 December 2016 - 04:46 AM.