Kit Fox Commander
While there are many builds out there, it seems that almost all are optimized in one way, to deal as much damage as possible and get away with it. It's not that it's bad, because it's exactly what wins games but it gets boring after while. One of Skill Tree goals was to make mechs better for their roles. But what are those roles? I guess that MWO gamers take things differently than Battletech lore does, so instead of posting yet another min-maxed grind build I will show you a build that was made to be closer to real Battletech lore while, and as opposed to many stock builds, still being able to fight in MWO.
This build ain't cookie cutter. Like many BT lore builds, it doesn't serve any specialized purpose. And as skill Tree heavily favors specialization, building a 30 ton swiss-knife machine was quite challenging. I guess playing it is even more. The amount of options this mechs gets is completely amazing, but it also means that it's very easy to make a mistake. And when you play a Kit Fox, you know that mistakes are deaths.
What we want to archive here is to make our build as close as possible to mech that would be used by Clan Star Commander and still maintain our ability to play MWO. I have assumed that our Star would have two mechs carrying LRM's, which is very close to what we're currently getting in Quick Play matches. This would make our Kit Fox target designator. For this we are carrying laser a TAG, mounted just under C-ERPPC that is used to poke and disable ECM. Both are high mounts allowing us to target enemies without revealing much of ourselves. Nearly full Sensor tree is used, with all Target Decay and Target Info Gathering nodes. We do also have Advanced Zoom and extended Sensor Range nodes. We want to coordinate our LRM Starmates to be able to finish cored enemies as quickly as possible.
Four Jump Jets beside obvious uses allow us not only to hit enemies with C-ERPPC but also to target them and keep them locked for lenghty periods of time. Sometimes this can allow us to see their mech status. This can be enhanced by CAP or TC and while our main variant does not carry such, mech build is flexible enough to fit one. We do also carry fully skilled ECM that is crucial when we want to observe enemies without being detected or when we want to shield our allies. Auxiliary Skill tree is expanded to allow us to carry four consumables total, with prefered two Cool Shots, single Artillery strike and single Airstrike. But changing that tree to get UAV bonuses or using different consumable configuration is personal preference.
One of reasons we do prefer Artillery over UAV is fact, that we already use maxed Seismic Sensor and 200 meter Target Retention. Target Retention is obviously useful when brawling and it works with Target Info Gathering. And as we are at brawling, the mech carries two C-Small Pulse Lasers and Artemis guided SRM6 missile launcher with 1 ton of ammo. That's 24 damage, perhaps not much but it's relatively cool and it's mainly for self defense or finishing targets. It shouldn't be ever underestimated because with such build we can easily sneak behind back-cored mech and finish it off. On colder maps we can also use PPC in melee.
Heat is universal problem of all small Omnimechs, as they can't carry many Heat Sinks and their engines are locked. Hence big amount of Skill Nodes has been spent to address this issue. Ten Heat Gen nodes, three Heat Containment nodes and two Cool Run nodes assisted by two upgraded Cool Shots can make this build run even on Terra Therma. It's possible to drop two Heat Gen nodes for one Speed Retention node and one Cool Run node. Tests have been made and it turned out that after 9 straight C-ERPPC shots Heat Gen version was at 94-95% Heat Capacity while Cool Run version was at 97%. But just single Speed Retention node allows legged mech to reach 50kph cap, so choose wisely.
What we do also have are Missile Spread and High Explosive nodes. Those High Explosive nodes are quite interesting, we are supposed to play with LRM mechs and those mechs will also have those nodes selected. Even after nerfs, crit-seeking Gauss/PPC combo is still at large and possibly will be seen in many games. Finally we do have our own C-ERPPC, so there are very many damaged components to be expected. Three Laser Duration nodes have been selected, dropping our C-Small Pulse laser burn time below 0.7 second to let us twist torso earlier.
With mechs like Kit Fox, that can neither use their speed nor armor to defend themselves, torso twisting is very important. Five Torso Speed nodes have been selected to give us 17.5% bonus making it nearly 180 degree/second. That's Clan Viper area. Reminder, all the brawling weapons we use are mounted on actuators, which combined with such twisting speeds are capable of reaching targets instantly, because our hand movement speed is almost 360 degree/second. Three Speed Tweak nodes are easily avaialable, but that is to personal preference and I don't have such need. Additionally it keeps mech speed at Battletech value, something I opt for. Torso Pitch nodes are prefered over Torso Yaw ones because of high torso mounts. Kinetic Burst and Hard Brake nodes are pretty useful when it comes to hit and run tactics.
When we go down to the Structure tree, the only nodes that matter are Skeletal Densities and truth is, I have tried a variant that has completely ignored this tree and still managed to do well. But six nodes are used here and that is all adjusted and carefully calculated to work with mech Armor/Structure values that are quite different for each Omnipod. That's total 34 Structure points at cost of 11 Skill nodes. Some Armor has been reduced below stock levels to match Structure values.
Take a look at Armor and Structure values, due to various Omnipods they are very uneven. With Skill Tree Nodes we're attempting to change it. Watch the Left Torso Armor, that has been deliberately reduced to draw fire in case of equal damage to both sides. It's like that to prevent Right Torso component loss to Critical Strikes. Additionally, thanks to our Structure nodes and precise Armor placing, we have managed to obtain a total of 41/21 Front/Rear values on Right Torso. Those very specific values are there because many deadly weapon combinations round at 20, 30 or 40 damage, and we don't want to lose half of mech early game to single ranged sucker punch. For same reason Rear Center totals at 31 and Head at 21. As Left Arm has most Armor to prevent Critical Damage and it's already holding SRM6 launcher the SRM6 Ammo is also there.
Jump Jets tree has been skipped completely, as four Jump Jets are enough for most basic aerial acrobatics. For this mech, I have found out that filling Jump Jet tree, except for Vectoring, brings bonus comparable to having fifth Jump Jet.
What I find impressive, almost no Skill Points have been wasted. Build was made to be versalite and it was battle tested, because those node choices come straight from gaming experience. My last 15 random Quick Play games with this mech and its variations ended with 11 wins, 12 kills and 5 deaths. In every game where we had few LRM mechs I have always managed to score some TAG kills. And while it's very hard to master, it plays completely different than your average "1000dmg/game" machine.
I might modify this post later.
Edited by G4LV4TR0N, 27 May 2017 - 03:46 PM.