7 replies to this topic

[TheCerpent]

I'm a returning Founder (stopped playing back in 2013, recently bought Battletech, looked for streamers playing BT, found Baradul and well... here I am) and I'm trying to get back into the swing of things. I used to play a lot of LRM boats, but I know that's not really considered the best use of one's time, especially if you've got 4 Atlas variants sitting in your garage.

Right now, I'm running a very budget AS7-D(F) because C-Bill bonus: AC20, 2xSRM6, 4xMLAS, STD300, 2 tons of ammo ea. for AC20 and SRMs, damn near max armor, and all the standard heatsinks I can stuff in there. I'm slow, I'm beefy, I can punch holes in armor, and I run fairly cool.

***Note: I have about 7mil C-Bills, so I know I could run something a bit more meta, but that would eat up most of my cash and I was thinking about getting a medium or heavy mech that could run a couple RAC5s or something. Like a Bushwacker. It looks fun.***

All that said, I'm super confused by the skill tree. I know ammo capacity is really good, especially for ballistics like the AC20, and I'm sure I should put something in to buff missiles, but I basically don't know where to start or what the most efficient pathing is. Any advice would be welcome. Also including build advice, or even suggestions on shifting to a different mech. The Atlas flavors I have are D, D-DC, S(L), and RS, I've got a STK-5M (set up as SRM6boat currently), a CN9-H(L), the free NVA-S(C), and a Trenchbucket-3C(lurms lol).

[JediPanther]

Welcome back buddy. The Atlas now is pretty rough to use as you need to be very good at positioning. The skill tree really isn't hard to figure out. Once you've used it a few times you'll come up with skill trees for diffrent things like a lrm boat skill tree, a brawler skill tree etc. It just looks confusing at first glance.You can have an active 91 points at any time. Here's a break down of the 'trees' I tend to use most.

1. Firepower. It gives you added range,speed of projectiles aka velocity, less heat when you fire called heat generation, and faster rate of fire cool down. It also has extra ammo for the magazine capacity or added missile ammo called missile rack. These four are the ones to get if you want extra ammo. One ton of ac 20 is about 7 shot but if you add magazine capacity it now get ten. Missiles gets an extra 20 per one ton so 120 is now 140.

2. Survival. Simple gives extra armor,less change of crits killing you and makes your mech last longer. Nearly every one adds 20 points for the left hand side for most of the armor points.

3. Mobility. Makes your mech faster based on your mech's base speed. Faster mechs get the most from it. Makes your mech torso twist faster,adds to the range you can pitch,makes your mech turn faster. For the atlas go for torso twisting. I find many people focus the rt to take off the gun on an atlas just as much they do an hbk's gun side.

4. Sensors. If you plan to use missiles(lrm boat catapults etc), have ecm or be a scout this tree is your go-to tree. It adds your sensor range, makes your target locks last longer, tracks targets behind you, gives you seismic sensor (a radar ping like blip on mini map when an enemy is near and moving by you as long as your mech isn't moving) and speeds up that info on enemy load outs so you can avoid nasty dual heavy guass or srm6 boats.

5. Mech Operations. This is your go-to tree if you have a lot of lasers,use ppcs or just want to shoot more. It increases the amount of heat your mech has and makes it cool down after building up heat. Combine it with firepower's heat gen skills for the maximum amount of heat and cool down.

To make the most of the skill tree first decide two very important things. 1. What types of mechs you like. 2. How you like to play such as do you love lrms or love to go big guns. Focus the skill tree to improve a mech on how you like to play. You wouldn't want to waste points on the firepower's gun and missile points in a mech that has all lasers and nothing else.

For that atlas build it sounds close to the old brawler build. std 300 is ok but you can go bigger engine for more speed. Upgrade heat sinks to double for more cooling. Upgrade the structure to endo and you get more space for ammo. Here's what I'd make it into: AS7-D Upgraded MKII

It includes bap for extended sensor range,cancels an enemy ecm near you, and gives you ams to help shoot down missiles along with more ammo for your weapons.

Check out these links to play around with mechs,builds,skill tree and their effects. It saves you a literal fortune. One important thing to remember is a lot of mechs have quirks. You can stack them aka add them to the skill tree for more of that quirk's effect. for example you can take the pnt-kk's 40% ppc velocity quirk max out the velocity skills in firepower tree(15% velocity) and now have a total of 55% ppc velocity.

For mech builds:https://mwo.smurfy-net.de/mechlab

For skill tree: https://kitlaan.gitlab.io/mwoskill/

just remeber to change the skill tree to the class and is or clan or you'll get wrong info.

[D34DMetal]

The Atlas has a lot of armor and structure quirks so for the skill tree I would first and foremost put points in the survival tree. After that it's really wherever you wish to allocate your skill points. It would also be good to throw some points into the mobility tree.

Once you have the cbills you could upgrade your Atlas with ERML, get an LFE to replace the standard engine, replace the SHS with DHS and maybe swpa the SRMs for MRMs.

[Steel Raven]

Welcome back!

Skills are very much season to flavor though maxing out Survival is something I recommend for the Atlas just for the fun. Buy a few nodes at a time to get the feel for what you need to invest in.

The Stalker 5M has just more recently been overshadowed by the Cyclops 10-Q as a SRM platform but still has great hitboxes. Filling up a good chunk of the left side of the skill tree has been enough for myself (again, qestion of taste) then try for the Range and Missiles nodes in Firepower. Make sure to invest in Cool Run in Operations.

Quick example:
https://tarogato-mwo...19-07990ab34b40

Also: the Stalker makes for a nice MRM boat but MRMs play different from other Missiles, would build up on C-Bills before trying them out but skills should benefit both SRM and SRM builds.

Light Engines are a great investment, not the death sentence of IS XLs but they do cost a good chunk of C-Bills. STD engine still works well until the warchest gets built up.

[Elizander]

I'd normally use this as a base for Firepower/Survival/Operations. The priority is getting all the heat gen nodes with as few points as possible, even if some are wasted. Getting the most from Survival and 10% Cool Run from Operations. I personally feel that I am not good enough to use up all my ammo so I tend to skip the ammo nodes and just fall back on lasers if ever I run out.

You can use 5-6 points to get double coolshot or double artillery if you want and the rest to laser duration nodes or whatever else. The 2.5% missile spread nodes don't matter so much from experience as long as you get close enough to the enemy. As long as I have the heat gen nodes I'm good to go.

I'd recommend you look into getting an LFE 300/325/350 whichever fits best on your Atlas. It will work with AC/20s, dual UAC/5s in the same ST and so on. Won't work with Heavy Gauss/LB20X/2x RAC/5/2x LB10X builds.

Edited by Elizander, 24 June 2018 - 12:05 AM.

[The Basilisk]

I'm an Atlas pilot myself and those are my builds I use atm.

-- AS7-S medrange/shortrange firesupport (do not try to brawl you got not enough dps)

-- AS7-K medrange/shortrange frontload (works well in citys otherwhise not so and no Frozen is not to be considered citymap)

-- AS7-D-DC sneaky medrange

[Cyrilis]

TheCerpent, on 23 June 2018 - 06:29 AM, said:

Right now, I'm running a very budget AS7-D(F) because C-Bill bonus: AC20, 2xSRM6, 4xMLAS, STD300, 2 tons of ammo ea. for AC20 and SRMs, damn near max armor, and all the standard heatsinks I can stuff in there. I'm slow, I'm beefy, I can punch holes in armor, and I run fairly cool.

So not about the skilltree but... I know a lot of poeple are fond of the AC20/SRM setup, but for me its just too static and has too few range.

If you have the bills to change that, I would recommend trying this:

https://mwo.smurfy-n...01d7fe6ed54c057

its fast, has good maneuvrablitlity... damn word... runs pretty cold and you are not restricted to 300m range to do serious damage.

A hint from me concerning skilltree:

it matters, if you choose the heat nodes from the firepower tree or the heat containment and cool run nodes from the operations tree:

Firepower tree reduces the heat generated by your weapons! if you have lots of weapons but relatively few heat sinks, thats where you want to invest.
-> this reduces your heat buildup

Operations nodes improve your heat sinks! if you have few weapons (that generate lots of heat like LL or PPCs) thats where you want to invest.
-> this reduces you heat dissipation

Edited by Cyrilis, 24 June 2018 - 02:21 AM.

[justcallme A S H]

JediPanther, on 23 June 2018 - 07:51 AM, said:

For that atlas build it sounds close to the old brawler build. std 300 is ok but you can go bigger engine for more speed. Upgrade heat sinks to double for more cooling. Upgrade the structure to endo and you get more space for ammo. Here's what I'd make it into: AS7-D Upgraded MKII

Please no... Beagle, CASE, AMS and no Artemis on SRMs? 4 big no-nos right there.


Anyway some, IMO, decent ATLAS-D options.

HGauss / Skill Maze

Classic / Skill Maze

Atlas with a Snub / Skill Maze