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WARNING: The information & tactics outlined in this guide do not comply with the Locust intended use, severe damage to the Locust AND/OR the enemy team may occur!
I'm an avid Locust pilot and i wanted to share my gameplay knowledge and experience to help you pilot the Locust and to spice up your gameplay. The goal of this guide is to improve your combat effectiveness and transform this little scout into a ferocious precision killer.
This will not be easy and you probably will die a lot but as you gain experience you will soon take out many more enemies in return!
The mech:
This guide has been written based on the usage of the Locust LCT-1E or Locust LCT-3M, both excel in close combat and are considered the best variants of the Locust line-up.
General strategy:
As you might know, the Locust was originally designed as a scout and you probably have already been requested often (or even told) to cap zones, to sprint for and "get inside" the circle, to find the enemy or take care of lights capping our base. From here on, we will put that aside and we enter each round primarily to eliminate our enemy as quickly and silently possible.
The locust is the smallest and one of the fastest mechs available. The locust biggest weakness is its durability but it makes up more then enough with speed, manoeuvrability and size.
Avoid taking the enemy head on and look for ways to get to their rear, find singled out, lagging behind, over extending, distracted targets or damaged targets. With the Locust you can move fast, stealthy, get around the enemy and operate on your own.
Use any map feature to close in and get to their weak-spots and hit your target weak-spots, damaged components, backs or legs. Use cover as your armor and to conceal your presence. Use your teammates as distraction, use cap zones, bases, circles etc as your tools to lure, bait, to split up or to confuse your enemy.
The 4 phases of combat:
There are four phases in combat, ideally you go from one phase to another in the given order:
Find the enemy
To be able to engage and destroy the enemy you first need to find them. Finding the enemy also allows your team to prepare, move and engage and thus distract the enemy allowing you more freedom of movement and actions. You move around the map and towards the enemy to locate them, preferably using stealth as that leaves more options to proceed open.
Once you have found the enemy you can decide how to proceed: if the enemy is unaware of your presence or is distracted / occupied by your team you can proceed to stalk or flank the enemy. If the enemy is aware, if your stealth approach failed you should break contact. Avoid going straight into combat (head-on), do this only when you have no other options or if you have a severe advantage over your opponent otherwise you have much better chances in an attack via a flank or stalk.
Stalk or flank the enemy
When the enemy is not focused on you or even better is unaware of your presence you can close in for an engagement and attack from a dead angle or blind spot. A flank is usually performed when the enemy is already engaged with your team, using cover you get around and attack the enemy from a direction where they are not looking. A stalk is usually performed behind enemy lines where you can follow, creep up and close in with unaware enemies hanging at the back or flanks (sniping or lurming). While stalking you try to get in pointblank range with your target
Engage the enemy
Depending on the situation and approach you use hit n run, backstab or tail-chase tactics to attack the enemy, ideally from a dead angle or blind spot to avoid detection and more import to avoid fire. Attacks on the flanks usually asks for hit n run tactics because the enemy usually has a general idea of your presence and more easily directs its attention (and fire) into your direction. A stalk usually leads to a backstab or tail-chase. Try to keep up your situational awareness, especially in combat, to stay in the enemies blind spot and thus avoid fire!
Break contact
When you get too much attention and fire you need to break contact and do a tactical retreat. Use evasive / dodging manoeuvres to spread or avoid damage and increase your distance to the enemy and find cover or concealment to hide and disappear (a tactical shutdown often does wonders). From a tactical retreat you can setup an ambush or go back to finding the enemy and re-engage (but only via a flank or stalk!). A tactical retreat often pulls one more more enemies away from the main fight, after you build up enough distance they most often abort the chase, split up or over extent. Most often a ideal ambush, backstab or tail-chase opportunity arises from this manoeuvre.
Exploit your opponents blindspot, stealth is your armor:
The enemy cant hit what it cant see, use your speed and size advantage to exploit this weakness and compensate your main weakness: lack of armor.
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blind spot: "a place or area where vision is completely or partially obscured or hearing is difficult or impossible"
All battlemechs seen in MWO are more or less similar in design, they all are "front loaded". This basically means that all the weapons are facing forwards and most of the armor is distributed to the front. Furthermore, the cockpit and thus the field of view of the pilot is at the front, also the sensor which detects enemy mechs is facing forward (a cone of +/- 100 degrees). This means the back or rear of a battlemech is a big weak spot, not only is there the least armor, no weapons can be fired to the rear and nothing can be seen nor detected. Add to that the limited turning speed, rotation range and speed, especially for the bigger and heavier mechs which severely hampers their ability to respond to threats or attacks from the rear.
The area or cone behind an enemy mech where vision and detection is obscured is called the "blind-spot". The Locust, because of its size, speed and agility, is by far most suited to exploit this weakness. Operating inside this blind spot means you are able to fight enemy mechs at a very close range with minimal or no exposure and prevents the enemy to exploit your biggest weakness: lack of armor!
Staying inside the blindspot
The blind spot is roughly 260 degrees wide, very roughly directly to your targets sides and all the way around the back, this is applicable to all mechs regardless of class, size and weight. The turning and torso rotation speed of your target will vary, big chunky assaults will have the worst turning and rotation speeds while lights, especially the Locust, have very very good turning and rotation speed. To exploit the blindspot you are most advantageous against the slowest and biggest enemies. Furthermore, the further you are away from your target, the quicker you have to respond to counter your targets turning / rotation to stay inside the blindspot. In short, the closer you are to your target, the easier it will be to remain unseen and undetected.
The size, speed and agility of the Locust should be used to move in to this blindspot and attack your target and break contact when you no longer are able to stay there, when you get too much attention.
Local blindspot and global bindspot
The "local" blindspot is what i call the blindspot relative to your target, if you are able to remain at the back of your target you will always be inside the local blindspot. However, there's also a "global" blindspot which is the sum or combined area of all enemy blindspots together. Mostly your team is facing the enemy team and vice versa, this means the global blindspot is roughly behind and a bit to the sides of the enemy group.
While you are inside the blind spot of your target, safe in the local blindspot, you cannot be detected, targetted nor being shot by your target. However other enemies are still able to see and detect your presence (if they are facing you). To be fully safe, you should not only be inside the local but also the global blindspot. While its not that hard to stay inside the local blindspot but all the more to stay in the global blindspot at the same time, its often not completely necessary but to minimise failure at least consider it and choose your target and your positioning in order to exploit the local and global blindspot the most. For example keeping your target in between you and the rest of the enemy team or choosing a target that is distanced from the rest of the enemy team. All in all, staying in the local blindspot is your main priority, the global blindspot second.
PS. This guide is a work in process, more information will be added along the line...
Edited by B3R3ND, 18 April 2017 - 11:07 AM.
