128 replies to this topic

[GreyMatter51]

I am currently working my way through the cadet achievements and have been trying to figure out which mech I want to purchase first. I am heavily favoring the Marauders (heavy and assault) but wanted to be sure that there are not other means I should get first since it appears to take some time to grind out the chills to buy a mech. Any suggestions for good means as a first purchase for new players? I know that this should not be a primary consideration, but I love the style and appearance of the marauder and the timberwolf style of mechs.

[Jingseng]

Well, believe it or not, this is a question that has been asked and answered, in depth, repeatedly, on a monthly, and sometimes weekly basis. You could probably go back a page or two of threads and find several of them.

I mention this because the advice you will get is going to be 98% identical. So if you don't want to wait, that's where you ought to look.

Otherwise, I would have to add, as I always do (and you'll see this if you follow the advice above), that you should wait until you have more experience and a more clearly developed play style. Information you'll want to provide us for better, personalized ™ recommendations include:

What you are using right now
Your favored play style
Your favored weapons
Mechs you do well in and mechs you do not do well in
What sort of player you are (tryhard, potato, casual, competitive, potahard, whatever)

Otherwise, everyone will tell you to get a Hunchback (IS), followed by either
1) a list of every available mech
2) a list of their personal favorites without regard to what you are looking for.

I say otherwise, but it will happen anyway

[Leone]

It's dangerous to go alone. Take this.

....

That said, I'd also suggest checking out an old thread I made for build considerations. Don't just ape the build, it could be all wrong for ya, but think of why I made 'em that way an maybe follow the discussion in thread. Figure weaponry you like, things that'll sync up well or a build concept you like. Then build a copy on the above website I linked. If it looks good on 'paper' by all means, go for it. I like the mech, but then, I can do okay in Timberwolves, and know of a few new folk who were deeply unhappy with their first purchase with a timber wolf 'meta' build, cuz it's what they were told to get an it clashed with 'em.

Information is ammunition. Tell us more about what you want so we can narrow our field of fire an home in on a solid target for ya.

~Leone.

Edited by Leone, 26 July 2017 - 08:56 PM.

[Rogue Jedi]

to repeat some of what Jingseng said (because it is right)
give us an idea of what you like, I usualy recomend to try most of the trial Mechs and take notes about what you like and dislike about each Mech and the weapons it has, so you can say e.g. I loved the handeling of the Dire Wolf, but want the firepower of the Spider ^{(I use those as the most silly examples possible, Dire being most slow and sluggish Mech in the game and Spider being the least heavily armed but the point stands)} and we can offer recomendations for something that fits those critera ^{(assuming you do not have impossible expectations)}

if you do not want to do that, then as Jingseng said the Hunchback is a good starting point ^{(although it was better when you had to skill up 3 varients of a chassis to get the best out of a single varient, because each Hunchback has a diferant primary weapon system so you experiance a variaty of play styles on a single chassis, Hunchbacks are cheep to outfit and pretty durable)} I advise staying away from Light and Assualt Mechs for now, because Light Mechs cannot take much damage and assualt Mechs are usualy too slow to get out of trouble, while also being priority targets for the enemy team.
also Light Mechs may look cheep but that is a trap, most require a lot of upgrades to get them to their best, usualy costing about double the purchase price for the upgrades, so look at the price of the Mech and treble it to get the cost of a battle ready Light Mech ^{(note Adder, Arctic Cheetah, Kit Fox and Mist Lynx are a lot cheeper to outfit than the other Lights as they are Omnimechs where you can only change weapons)}

Medium or Heavy Mechs are usualy the best starting point, but idealy you want to not pick a Mech which is a top priority target for the enemy team, the only Heavy or Medium Mechs which still seem to be high priority targets are Timber Wolf and Night Gyr, so I would advise against taking those 2 until you have a bit more experiance.

[50 50]

One point I might add to this is if you are buying any mech, particularly on the IS side that you leave a good chunk of c-bills in the bank. Don't blow it all on the one mech as customizing the mech will remove what ever is left of those funds.
I say particularly on the IS side as the mechs look cheap to begin with because by the time you start buying engines and new weapons, endo steel structure etc you will spend a lot of c-bills.

This is also true of the clan battlemechs.

Might be a good idea to check out the smurfy mech editor first to get a bit of an idea of how the cost might add up.

Edited by 50 50, 26 July 2017 - 10:14 PM.

[Gagis]

Out of the two, the Clan version is more competitive than the IS Marauder, so you might want to start with that. I am fond of going full laser vomit on the base variant, but all of them except the -B are good in their own ways.

Here is what I run, for reference:
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...cabb090feba0499

The heat takes a little care to manage, but having more firepower is worth the extra effort.

[SnagaDance]

GreyMatter51, on 26 July 2017 - 07:51 PM, said:

... since it appears to take some time to grind out the chills to buy a mech.

I'll latch onto this little bit in your post. I read that you were doing the Academy, which is nice in that can get you 3 to 4,5 million C-bills from the top of my head.

However the real starting money comes from your first 25 matches. To these are tied 'achievements' that will grant you about 25 million C-bills in total, allowing you to buy and outfit any mech in the game (or even several when looking at cheaper mechs).

(insert remark about you young whipper snappers having it so good these day, why in our time you only had stock Inner Sphere mechs and you liked them and there was no free money, noooooooo, only a percentage boost to your personal earnings for those first few matches where you had no idea what you were doing, no academy either you see, and you didn't earn squat, grumble grumble mumble)

Be aware though, after those first 25 matches you will need to earn your own keep and your income will drop drastically (it's actually the same but you're just not getting those free bonusses anymore). So your first mech choice is indeed an important one. Better to wait with buying a mech and buying one that fits your play style than spending too soon and getting a mech you really don't do well in but bought anyway just because you read a forum post/saw a YouTube vid about someone doing great in. it.

[Spetulhu]

50 50, on 26 July 2017 - 10:12 PM, said:

One point I might add to this is if you are buying any mech, particularly on the IS side that you leave a good chunk of c-bills in the bank. Don't blow it all on the one mech as customizing the mech will remove what ever is left of those funds.

Good point there. A basic mech with standard engine and nothing extra looks pretty cheap until you want to upgrade it with an XL engine and big fancy guns.

Trying the trial mechs and building up a bit of cash first is probably a good idea, but it's your time and C-bills spent so if you really want a Marauder or Timberwolf go for it. They're both good mechs if you want to drive a heavy.

[Audacious Aubergine]

If all else fails, if it looks cool to you and it's within your budget, just start with that.

[Tier5 Kerensky]

Marauder IIC-D is a killer on lower tiers, while it's still good on higher too. ECM and Clan weapons on assult.

Longer text about it I wrote little while ago.

https://mwomercs.com...ost__p__5813240

Edited by Teer Kerensky, 27 July 2017 - 12:49 AM.

[Ruccus]

For a general mech to learn many aspects of the game I'd suggest the Bushwacker BSW-X2, though to avoid getting killed quickly you might want to immediately swap out its stock 275XL engine for a light fusion or standard engine unless you absolutely need the XL's weight savings. You can put it back in once you feel you've mastered the art of the torso twist to spread damage.

With its armour quirks it's a tanky mech for a medium, its long cockpit makes it easy to learn how to torso twist, it's fast enough to get around the map but not too fast to be wandering off on your own, and with 3 ballistic, 3 missile, and 2 energy hardpoints it allows you to equip most of the inner sphere weapons so you can learn which weapons you like and don't like on a single mech. Only inner sphere weapons it can't equip are the PPC, ERPPC, and Heavy PPC, but they operate similar to the Light PPC and Snub-nose PPC which can be fitted.

[GreyMatter51]

Apologies. I had meant to list some of the mechs that I had played but it was late when I posted this and I was half asleep. I have played most of the medium and heavy means that are currently in trial in my mechbay (side question how often do the trial mechs change?) I had looked through the forums some for posts on this type of topic but I also knew that there was a patch recently that had apparently made some changes to a few mechs and I was unsure how accurate the answers in those posts would be (I was mainly only going as far back as June for these posts).

On the trial mechs I have only played around 17 games so far so I am still very new to the game and getting used to the game and the maps. So far it feels like I am not contributing anything to the games that I am in, but I am currently chalking that up to the fact that I am still very new to the game. Of the mechs that I've played I have enjoyed the Ebon Jaguar, Stalker, Nova, and I enjoyed the ac's on the Mauler for some reason.

I am just trying to think ahead a little with this post and get a good idea on what mesh to try and go for.

[Koniving]

GreyMatter51, on 27 July 2017 - 04:37 AM, said:

Apologies. I had meant to list some of the mechs that I had played but it was late when I posted this and I was half asleep. I have played most of the medium and heavy means that are currently in trial in my mechbay (side question how often do the trial mechs change?)

Early on, every week, then every two, then every month, now it seems like every two patches (two months). I'm really not sure why; I would like them to at least do it every patch (which is why it was so frequent early on).

The general "if you don't know what you want to do" mech suggestion is the Hunchback for a number of reasons such as cheap (not just to get but to reoutfit since it needs very little to be viable in MWO), very flexible, can do just about any role, and tanky.

Marauders are good heavies (and the IIC Marauder are good assaults). Naturally an assault will be able to tank more than a Heavy, but at the same a Heavy can go faster with lower engines. So keep in mind the Marauder is faster than the IIC. The biggest difference beyond being a heavy versus an assault, is one uses Inner Sphere technology and the other uses Clan technology.

IS technology in PGI / MWO's design focuses and specializes on rapid damage delivery, low heat and frequent firing, at the cost of range and in some cases (mainly lasers) actual damage output. Some just summarize this as "Burst damage".

Clan tech in PGI/MWO's design focuses on higher damage output delivered for superior range at the cost of heat and of course time (as it takes longer for many of their weapons to deliver that damage). Some of their equipment is lighter and consumes fewer slots but in turn they are considerably more fragile and easy to break (where the IS equipment is the opposite).

If it helps since you like the Mauler's ACs, you can fit some of those (up to 3 depending on the variant) on the Marauder since they are both Inner Sphere. The IIC Marauder assault would have very different ACs/UACs similar to the Ebon Jaguar (if the trial build has any).

Trial builds are using "Champion" mechs, which are designed by the community to fit some has-been meta back in the stone ages when the main method of transportation was the Flintstone mobile. They are very niche builds and tend to be designed with the idea of fulfilling some tiny role in a large organized team; which you won't see as a new player. So yeah, it isn't necessarily just you.

Some quick tips: Target enemies. Shoot body parts on that upper right damage doll that are red before anything else (they will go boom the quickest) and be consistent; spread damage isn't effective. Hit somewhere and keep hitting it until it is gone.

Of the two, the IS Marauder would be a lot more affordable at first, but in the end (double heatsinks, possibly endo steel, a Light Fusion or eXtra Light Fusion engine) it'll be pretty similar.

[Its my first day]

I'd recommend a heavy clan omnimech for your first like the timber, hellbringer or ebon jag. They're fast enough and tanky enough that you can live through some mistakes, you can try different loadouts with the omnipods, and you don't have to mess with stuff like engines and building it from scratch. TBR was my first mech and I'm very pleased with it. If that doesnt interest you, my only advice would be to stay away from slower mechs early on, you'll get caught in bad positions a lot and die.

[Keltan]

Hellbringer- Prime is good. ECM and laser vomit. I also like the Hunchback IIC (Uac 5 and lasers) and am enjoying the Marauder-3R (PPC and UAC-5).

You want to think about what it is about the mech's that make you like them. High mounts? Jump jets? Fast? Lasers? SRMS? Then ask about which mechs play that way best for a beginner.

Timberwolves get targeted first on the Polar Highlands map, so plan to take Radar dep if you get one.

[Koniving]

Since it got mentioned:

A Battlemech is your typical 'Mech where you can change engines, armor, structure, etc. Everything except hardpoints (or maximum weight; but that's universally true; any weight not consumed is wasted).

An Omnimech (right now the Clans have them but the IS does not yet have one) are (in MWO) 'Mechs with swappable limbs and each limb can hold different hardpoints. The engine, armor (type in MWO, but in Battletech even the amount of armor), structure, heatsink type and certain other equipment are 'fixed' and cannot be changed.

In general, you can tell "Omnimechs" by whether or not the main (first listed) variant declares itself as "Prime." As in Primary Configuration (technically Omnimechs don't have variants, they have configurations and the letter designations are for common configurations).

If the chassis doesn't have a "Prime", it is a Battlemech. If it has a "Prime", it is an Omnimech.

While unimportant

Spoiler

In Battletech the source material, the difference between "fixed" parts on an Omnimech and literally everything on a Battlemech is... there is no difference. These are the things that take days, weeks or sometimes months to change, while Omnimech parts that are not fixed can be changed within minutes to hours [very handy on campaigns where you have very little time before the next encounter]. Omnimech armor and structure is very easily repaired or replaced and broken equipment is swapped out with little difficulty, unlike a Battlemech.

But change the "fixed" parts on an Omnimech and it isn't necessarily compatible with the easy-to-swap parts anymore. Add additional armor to the arm and now some omni-equipment made for the generic Omnimech might not fit anymore. And changing the skeleton [structure] type, well in Battletech two identical mechs but one with endo steel and one without, will be two different sizes since endo steel structure needs to be 'thicker' to hold its shape even if it is quite a bit lighter.) Basically if you changed the fixed equipment, you turn an Omnimech into a Battlemech, so nobody in their right mind does it.

So beyond not wanting to change the fixed equipment to avoid making the gear and supplies you have for your Omnimech useless, there's nothing actually different between an Omnimech's fixed gear and a Battlemech's many body parts.

Again, the info in the spoiler irrelevant to MWO, but if you ever wondered or went to try a Battletech tabletop campaign, now you know an Omnimech from a Battlemech and that "fixed" isn't really "fixed" but "change only if you're absolutely desperate and are willing to live with that decision until it's finally destroyed.".

Edited by Koniving, 28 July 2017 - 05:04 AM.

[Jay Leon Hart]

So, you like the look of the Marauders & Timber Wolves and have enjoyed playing Novas, Ebon Jaguars, Stalkers & Maulers...

First off, here is a list of popular 'mechs if you want a little reading and analysis.

I highly recommend you start in Medium or Heavy 'mechs as they blend firepower and mobility much better than the more specialised Light and Assault classes. There are, as always, exceptions.

Since you didn't really mention a weapon preference (aside from ACs on the Mauler), I will give you a 'mech for each weight class, faction and weapon type that I believe are good to excellent, based on your other preferences. I may or may not suggest a specific variant (it matters a lot less for some 'mechs),

IS Medium
Energy weapons - Crab - CRB-27SL - Low profile, great hit boxes, generally safe to run an XL engine, has jump jets.
Missile weapons - Griffin - GRF-2N - ECM, good hit boxes, most symmetry outside the Hero, has jump jets.
Ballistic weapons - Shadow Hawk - Good hit boxes, high weapon mounts, generally safe to run an XL engine, great number of configurations, has jump jets. Pick any except the SHD-2K as that lacks Ballistics (although it's still a good 'mech).

Clan Medium
Energy weapons - Nova - Low profile, *lots* of energy hardpoints, great hot boxes, has jump jets.
Missile weapons - Huntsman - High mounts, lots of free tonnage, good hit boxes, has jump jets.
Ballistic weapons - Hunchback II - HBK-IIC - High mounts, BattleMech (full customisation), good hit boxes, has jump jets.

IS Heavy
Energy weapons - Grasshopper - High mounts, great hit boxes, generally safe to run an XL engine, great long range combatant, has jump jets. Pick any except the GHR-5J as it lacks high torso mounts.
Missile weapons - Catapult - CPLT-A1 or CPLT-C4 - Tight clustered missiles, great torso hit boxes, generally safe to run an XL engine, small frame, has jump jets. *BONUS* The Timber Wolf AKA Mad Cat was named so because (a targeting computer thought) it resembled the Marauder (MAD) & Catapult (CAT).
Ballistic weapons - Marauder - MAD-5M - Great hit boxes, has jump jets.

Clan Heavy
Energy weapons - Ebon Jaguar - High mounts, good amount of free space and free tonnage, good hot boxes, low profile.
Missile weapons - Mad Dog - Tight clustered missiles. *BONUS* Looks like a Timber Wolf. Kinda. If you squint.
Ballistic weapons - Night Gyr - NTG-D - Only Night Gyr with a CT weapon, good long range combatant, *lots* of free tonnage, has jump jets.

[GreyMatter51]

I just wanted to thank everyone for the help in this thread. I still have not decided which mech I plan to purchase first, but everyone has given me a lot to think about. I have been looking at the mechs in the medium and heavy classes and have been trying to pay attention to the bonuses that they receive and the initial loadouts.

in playing a few more games (and finishing the cadet achievements) I think I will focus on Ballistics and lasers. The missiles I seem to have a hard time using on the trial mechs.

I do have one question though, with the prices on the mechs varying to a very large degree, is the cost indicative to the possible performance of the mech or is it more about popularity? I notice some mechs can start off very cheap (Rifleman for example) and others in the same class can be up to 5x more expensive (Timberwolf).

Playing this game is really taking me back to the other Mechwarrior games that I used to play (and considering reinstalling) which is why some of the mechs appeal to me more than others. The Marauder from the original i thought was the best looking mech in the game for some reason which is why I focused on it and the Timberwolf. I may just have to weigh my options and bite the bullet on a medium or heavy mech and start upgrading it since it seems like the trial mechs do not change very often.

[Leone]

It is actually based offa the Equipment that mech comes with. So the Madcat (Or timberwolf, as you know it,) comes with clan Endosteel an Ferro-Fibrious Armour and a Large XL engine and Double heatsinks an some weaponry. That gets expensive.

The classic Rifleman may just have normal engines, standard internals, single heatsinks and so on. But! What if you wanna add those yourself? Costs start adding up.

IS is easy to purchase, expensive to bling out. Clan mechs just come customer modded for the most part (See Konivings Battlemech/Omnimech post for further reference.)

Oh, an yeah, Trials've been changin' bout twice a year recently, an everyone votes on the weird builds.

~Leone.

Edited by Leone, 28 July 2017 - 09:22 PM.

[Rogue Jedi]

just to add to what Leone said, Mech price is dependant on the upgrades it has, but many of the cheeper Mechs will still need those upgrades to compete, e.g. a Locust costs about 2 million to purchase but will end up costing 6-7 million by the time you have outfitted and upgraded it.
the things you will need to factor in depending on the Mech

Double Heat Sinks, 1.5 million (included in all Clan Mechs and about 1/3 of IS Mechs) costs 1.5 million, and about the only time you will not want it is if you are planning on taking 40+ single heat sinks or are ONLY taking very low heat weapons like Gauss Rifles or Machine guns

Engine upgrade, will cost between 1 and 7 million depending on the size (number rating) of the engine and if it is a standard, XL or Light fusion, Omnimechs cannot change engine, makes the Mech faster, and also gives more heatsinks or in engine slots where you can place heatsinks, upto 250 every 25 of engine rating adds a heatsink, over 250 every 25 of engine rating gives a heatsink slot
Mechs with Standard engines suvive with just the head, CT and 1 leg, a Clan XL or Light fusion require at least 1 side torso as well, and suffer a loss in performance and cooling if you loose 1 side, with Inner Sphere XL engines die when you loose 1 side torso.

Endo Steel internals, costs mech tonage multiplied by 10,000, reduces Mech weight in exchange for slots

Fero Fibrus Armor, slightly cheeper then Endo, reduced Mech tonage in exchange for slots, less reduction than endo for the same number of slots