114 replies to this topic

[Rosh87]

Hello everyone !

Brief background: my buddy from my hometown got me interested in this game, when I visited him last Christmas vacation. I had never played a Mech game before, and only knew about the Battletech world / universe very generally (an older friend had played the pen-n-paper version back in high school, I think ?). I was intrigued by the amount of strategy the game had (plus the theorycrafting with the builds / loadouts), and the visuals are pretty cool with huge mechas stomping around blasting stuff. All in all, very nice game / presentation, I felt.

So I signed up and began playing with him, very sparsely, around the end of January. I probably did a day a week, for maybe 2 hours max - and that was it, for the first few months. So probably less than 12 hours of play in, from start to here in April ! However...something happened the last few days... We played Sunday night a bit, and then he went to bed. I however, stayed up and - on a whim - decided to tweak the loadout on my Annihilator (the 1st mech I actually bought, with all the credits from the Training Missions and such)... and I put on 4 LB-10x 'shotguns' (I think I was inspired by this video the famous Mech YT'er Baradul did where he jokingly said "I just wanted to blast some mechs with shotguns today").

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To my shock ...this actually turned out amazingly for me...I suddenly started doing crazy damage (600, 700, 800, 900, etc) - and getting lots of credits (I saw some games with like 10 components destroyed, 12, etc). Instead of going to bed, I actually stayed up throughout the evening, and kept playing (I work nights and was off work that day, so it was not as crazy as it might sound at first) !

My wins kept going (for the most part) and I actually went and bought another mech (a Mauler)... and actually invested a bit of "real money" for the MC's that I was able to use to pick up a Mech that I'd heard about a few times in Forum talks and such, which sounded great to me (I love Dakka in this game / most games that allow for it, so ballistic setups really appealed to me). The mech in question was called "Ultraviolet", but everyone was calling it "Ultra-Violence", lol. It has the ability to mount 8 of these LB-2 shotguns, for devastating massed fire-focus, at great range (900+).

With these 3 mechs, I played several more matches, and eventually by the time I stopped and went to bed, I somehow had risen through Tier-5 and into Tier-4 ! (I forget how far up the Tier-5 progress bar I was). Some of these matches were crazy - damage of 1000, 1100, 1200...etc. One game I KO'd 15 Components. Really fun / impressive stuff, for my having just started out, I felt. Anyways...here I am after another morning of playing, and about to go to bed again (more great results, over halfway through the Tier-4 bar, headed towards Tier-3 I guess ?).

I have several questions (apologies for the lengthy intro / explanation, but I thought it would be relevant to explain where I'm at here); I will love any advice or explanations veterans can provide to me.

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1.) Premium Time: Is this worth it if I play 3-5 days a week, going forwards ? And is it considered more viable to buy it 'straight up', or (as I've read sometimes) to get it via "packs / bundles" in the store ? The reason I ask is some of the bundles cost like 3000 to 9000 "MC" ...which seems expensive. How much is the Premium in terms of MC, for a year ? I assumed it was like WOT or other games of this sort, where a year is 99$ - but I couldn't easily find a "click here for Premium" button, in the standard Garage / Bay area, so I thought I'd ask here.


2.) Is there a point to having more than one "type" of a Mech, other than just for Collector purposes ? Like, I got the Annihilator variant with the 6 ballistic hardpoints, and had orginally been running it with 6 AC-5's, I think...which was kind of fun...but honestly my results have exploded upwards / better with these 4-LB10's I've been using the last few days, so I'm not sure if one setup is clearly superior to the other.

Related to this...I got my main Annihilator...and have maxed out his Skill Points at the 91 / 91 level...and playing him more (from what I can tell) only builds up XP on his chassis, which you'd have to "convert to Free XP / GXP" using C-Bills, to make it actually relevant to the rest of your mechs, possibly, correct ? There's no real point in unlocking "every single Skill Tree node", if you already have the 91 you are happy with, correct ?


3.) Going off the above question, are there many cases where a particular mech (either normal variant, Hero, or Champion config) is considered "notably better" than the other possible purchases ? I just don't want to make a newbie mistake and buy a "Mech-X1" (made up name) and have people go "oh, you dummy, you should have gotten the Mech-X5 model, that's the one with better armor and more weapon options !".


4.) I have seen most of the Store mechs grant special "perks" / traits as part of their statsline. These can be improved armor, or better charge times on Gauss (Fafnir-5, I think)...or similar. Is there an easy link / list to an excel doc or such, that lays out all of these unique traits, so I could consider them for possible future pickups ? Are there any ballistic-particular ones that I'd probably enjoy ? LB-10, Autocannons, or RAC's are probably the guns I've had the most fun with, to date - so perhaps mechs with special traits relating to those, you can recommend ??


5.) Lastly, is there a clear benefit to some of the largest mech weapon types, like LB-20, or AC-20, or the like ? It seems (just from my brief looking over the options), that weapons in MWO sort of go "the smaller / weaker they are, the farther they shoot" and "the bigger / stronger they are, the shorter their range - in some cases, massively shorter". Given that engagement ranges are quite varied, in the matches I've played in - I can assume there's not a "clear winner"...but some of the 1000+ damage matches I've produced in the Ultraviolet mech, have seen me blasting away at enemy targets at ranges of 900+, where they (in many cases) seem not able to return effective fire on me, and I just keep blowing off components and such, with the 8 LB-2's. This 'seems' to tell me that long-range combat potential is an important part of MWO battle success ? For example, the few times I've tried out Fafnir (I bought one as my 4th and final mech, as of now)... I tend to do massively worse than in the other 3 (using the 2 Hvy Gauss setup that it's famous for, I think). The fact I have to be so close to effectively damage stuff with those weapons, means I find it much harder to get damage in (plus the Gauss charge up thing is something I'm still learning - it's much different than the other weapon types I've used).

The result is that I can take the LB-Annihilator, LB2-Ultraviolet, or RAC / AC-Mauler I have, and produce regularly between 600 and 1200 damage a match.. but when I take the Fafnir out, I think the best I ever got was 600 something. I'm sure it's user-error / new guy mistakes, but this Range question got me thinking ...maybe the longer range stuff is just more useful in the game. So I thought I'd put this in as my final question. Thanks to anyone who made it this far, and for any potential answers / advice you can provide to me ! Great game and I look forward to enjoying it for a long time to come !

[Koniving]

Rosh87, on 09 April 2019 - 10:58 AM, said:

1.) Premium Time: Is this worth it if I play 3-5 days a week, going forwards ? And is it considered more viable to buy it 'straight up', or (as I've read sometimes) to get it via "packs / bundles" in the store ? The reason I ask is some of the bundles cost like 3000 to 9000 "MC" ...which seems expensive. How much is the Premium in terms of MC, for a year ? I assumed it was like WOT or other games of this sort, where a year is 99$ - but I couldn't easily find a "click here for Premium" button, in the standard Garage / Bay area, so I thought I'd ask here.

Never buy premium time.
If you're going to spend the money, preorder a mech and bam you get 30 to 90 days. Or preorder MW5 Mercs and you'll get a game, a crapload of goodies including a shitload of MC, and get quite a bit more premium time for less than two of those 9000 MC premium time purchases.

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2.) Is there a point to having more than one "type" of a Mech, other than just for Collector purposes ? Like, I got the Annihilator variant with the 6 ballistic hardpoints, and had orginally been running it with 6 AC-5's, I think...which was kind of fun...but honestly my results have exploded upwards / better with these 4-LB10's I've been using the last few days, so I'm not sure if one setup is clearly superior to the other.

Related to this...I got my main Annihilator...and have maxed out his Skill Points at the 91 / 91 level...and playing him more (from what I can tell) only builds up XP on his chassis, which you'd have to "convert to Free XP / GXP" using C-Bills, to make it actually relevant to the rest of your mechs, possibly, correct ? There's no real point in unlocking "every single Skill Tree node", if you already have the 91 you are happy with, correct ?

Unless playing faction play or for convenience of not having to swap things out when you want to go from one build or another, no there isn't.
If you had say 4 copies of the same mech of a more reasonable weight class, you could churn them back to back in faction play.

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3.) Going off the above question, are there many cases where a particular mech (either normal variant, Hero, or Champion config) is considered "notably better" than the other possible purchases ? I just don't want to make a newbie mistake and buy a "Mech-X1" (made up name) and have people go "oh, you dummy, you should have gotten the Mech-X5 model, that's the one with better armor and more weapon options !".

Some variants are better than others.
But "class" within the same variant... they're actually identical. A champion build just comes with some supposedly community designed build that's been put forth for some long-dead meta or by chance current meta. Other than a different stock loadout, its identical to its "normal" class version of the same variant.

Standard: No bonuses
Champion: Bonus to experience points earned (Mech and General)
Hero/Special-Name: bonus to cbills earned. (Hero is obvious, Special-Name can be anything from [G]old to [S]team/special/Sarah to [L]oyalty [R]esistance [P]heonix, [I]nvasion [F]ounder (Operation Inception), etc. etc. etc.)

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4.) I have seen most of the Store mechs grant special "perks" / traits as part of their statsline. These can be improved armor, or better charge times on Gauss (Fafnir-5, I think)...or similar. Is there an easy link / list to an excel doc or such, that lays out all of these unique traits, so I could consider them for possible future pickups ? Are there any ballistic-particular ones that I'd probably enjoy ? LB-10, Autocannons, or RAC's are probably the guns I've had the most fun with, to date - so perhaps mechs with special traits relating to those, you can recommend ??

I stopped paying attention to quirks. More fun to build the way I want.

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5.) Lastly, is there a clear benefit to some of the largest mech weapon types, like LB-20, or AC-20, or the like ? It seems (just from my brief looking over the options), that weapons in MWO sort of go "the smaller / weaker they are, the farther they shoot" and "the bigger / stronger they are, the shorter their range - in some cases, massively shorter". Given that engagement ranges are quite varied, in the matches I've played in - I can assume there's not a "clear winner"...but some of the 1000+ damage matches I've produced in the Ultraviolet mech, have seen me blasting away at enemy targets at ranges of 900+, where they (in many cases) seem not able to return effective fire on me, and I just keep blowing off components and such, with the 8 LB-2's. This 'seems' to tell me that long-range combat potential is an important part of MWO battle success ? For example, the few times I've tried out Fafnir (I bought one as my 4th and final mech, as of now)... I tend to do massively worse than in the other 3 (using the 2 Hvy Gauss setup that it's famous for, I think). The fact I have to be so close to effectively damage stuff with those weapons, means I find it much harder to get damage in (plus the Gauss charge up thing is something I'm still learning - it's much different than the other weapon types I've used).

This is an issue only working against autocannons and missiles. Missiles understandably as you're swapping damage for fuel to get somewhere.
For autocannons (standard, Ultra, LBX), the issue is lost in translation.
Autocannons are high caliber giant machine guns in real life and in Battletech. A firing rate of 2 in a second is painfully slow for an autocannon.

MWO made them into tank cannons and/or howitzers without the range.

Battletech already has tank cannons; they're called Rifles and a Heavy Rifle is 8 tons and has identical range to an AC/5, but does 6 damage to armor and 9 to structure its also 190mm while a medium rifle is typically 120mm and does 3 damage to armor and 6 to structure, light rifle does 0 to armor and 3 to structure....and range goes down as you get smaller like real guns.

Rifles in BT fire too slow and are too easy to block or deflect or simply dodge as a single bullet is much easier to evade at long range than a hailstorm of ballistic wrath.

Now back to autocannons. The AC/5 caps at 120mm...yet does 5 damage per round.. Click here to find out why its called a round and why a round is not the same as a shot in this context. This isn't because its per bullet or a magic super bullet but because a number of shells will net 5 damage. This concept was lost on PGI and Russ thought a big gun should have a big bullet. When the biggest difference between an AC/5 and an AC/20 of the same caliber is the AC/20 can fire 4 times faster and is half as accurate because of this...thus the shorter accurate range. (for consideration, a GM Whirlwind/5 [AC/5] needs 3 shots to net 5 damage, a Deathgiver [AC/20] needs 12 to deal 20, both are 120mm. Course BT weapon variants go well beyond that, such as the Pontiac 100 which fires 100 40mm shots.)

(Difference between an AC/20 and a RAC/5 in BT is a RAC/5 is technically an AC/30, but in doing so they reclassified it from stating its range for expecting all shots to hit one body section being 270 meters to stating its range to hit 'something in general' is 500 something meters, and its reflected in that the damage allotments are in up to 6 units of 5 damage applied randomly because its inaccurate as all hell.)

MWO has ranges be the stated range for full damage and x2 of that range will net zero (unless Heavy Gauss where you get x5 and LBX gets x3 before hitting zero). Where in Battletech these are just accurate ranges where you're likely to hit something with your full firepower to net the rated damage. For lasers and MGs it was the range at which it'd do damage to BAR 10 armor (though it got its stuff backward somehow but I blame Wizkidz for that; a lot of what they did seemed to show they had no idea what they were doing, they even simplified Solaris 7 to a 5 hit /defeated system and had you play it with cards).

Good luck, and see you around!

Edited by Koniving, 09 April 2019 - 12:09 PM.

[Steel Wool Atlas]

1) I'd advise against getting the Mech packs just for the premium time as it's cheaper to just buy it straight up ($15 of MC will get you 30 days of premium time with 500 MC left over, whereas most standard Mech packs cost $20). If you see a mech you like, though, you definitely get your money's worth between 3+ variants and 30+ days of premium time.

2) Different variants of Mechs are going to have different hardpoints and different quirks, which in turn makes them capable of and good at different things. If you have a specific loadout you like then by all means stick to the variant that it works with, but if you like a chassis' general performance (agility/armor/hitboxes/speed/etc.) it can be worth checking out other variants to see what they can run. And no, there's no reason to unlock every single skill node; you might pick up a few different nodes if you decided to run a different loadout (e.g. if you decided to go dual Heavy Gauss on your Annihilator instead of quad LB10), but there's no inherent value to having more nodes unlocked.

3) There are so many mechs and variants in this game that it's hard to give an answer beyond just "yes" to this question. I recommend figuring out your favored playstyle and then doing some research to see what mech variants fit it best (always be sure to check out hardpoints, stats, and quirks before buying!)

4) I think there are resources out there that list quirks, though in my experience they tend to become outdated quickly with how frequent balance changes and new mech releases are. I don't have a link offhand, unfortunately.

5) You've pretty much hit the tradeoff right on the nose--bigger weapons tend to have shorter ranges and longer cooldowns than smaller weapons (with the exception of lasers, which actually get better ranges as they get bigger, but also generate substantially more heat). As for whether short range or long range is better... neither is better or worse per se, but MWO matches frequently have an unfortunate tendency to get bogged down in long-range plinking matches as both teams hide behind cover, particularly on certain maps. And while long-range builds can hack it when a brawl starts (hang back and pick off targets of opportunity), short range builds are basically useless if the two teams are refusing to close the distance. Most likely that's the problem you're running into.

[Koniving]

(For said mechpack, you get mechs without spending cbills, as well as 900 MC worth of mechbays, and 30 days premium. Where for the 15 dollar MC you get 30 days and 500 MC left over... And then there's the 15 dollar mech packs.. Not to mention the cbills, warhorns, free paint, free pattern...etc. There's a reason I'm sitting on well over a year of premium time despite using 30 days every other month and never having bought premium time...ever. Also haven't really bought more than four mech packs each year in the past couple of years [bare minimum to get the loyalty rewards])

Edited by Koniving, 09 April 2019 - 12:13 PM.

[MechaBattler]

If you want to browse the quirks of mechs. I would recommend going over to Smurfy's. https://mwo.smurfy-net.de/ There's a Mech Quirks drop down list for each weight category.

[mailin]

I was also going to recommend Smurfys. Great and useful site. It's also useful for building mechs without having to spend any hard earned C-bills.

[Horseman]

Rosh87, on 09 April 2019 - 10:58 AM, said:

I however, stayed up and - on a whim - decided to tweak the loadout on my Annihilator (the 1st mech I actually bought, with all the credits from the Training Missions and such)... and I put on 4 LB-10x 'shotguns' (I think I was inspired by this video the famous Mech YT'er Baradul did where he jokingly said "I just wanted to blast some mechs with shotguns today").

Note that the ANH has several variants. One of them works better for LBXes, but there's another quirked for AC10s. You might also want to try 2xUAC10+2xUAC5 - but make sure you pace your double-taps as otherwise you'll run into some nasty heat penalties.

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1.) Premium Time: Is this worth it if I play 3-5 days a week, going forwards ? And is it considered more viable to buy it 'straight up', or (as I've read sometimes) to get it via "packs / bundles" in the store ? The reason I ask is some of the bundles cost like 3000 to 9000 "MC" ...which seems expensive. How much is the Premium in terms of MC, for a year ? I assumed it was like WOT or other games of this sort, where a year is 99$ - but I couldn't easily find a "click here for Premium" button, in the standard Garage / Bay area, so I thought I'd ask here.

Generally I'd recommend getting Premium through mech packs - costs about as much as the premium time and mechbays put together, and you get mechs on top of that.

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2.) Is there a point to having more than one "type" of a Mech, other than just for Collector purposes ? Like, I got the Annihilator variant with the 6 ballistic hardpoints, and had orginally been running it with 6 AC-5's, I think...which was kind of fun...but honestly my results have exploded upwards / better with these 4-LB10's I've been using the last few days, so I'm not sure if one setup is clearly superior to the other.

Different quirks and hardpoints make different builds viable on one compared to the other. For example, the ANH-1X is specially quirked towards LB10s and delivers more DPS out of them, while your ANH-2A has smaller armor quirks compared to the other variants.

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Related to this...I got my main Annihilator...and have maxed out his Skill Points at the 91 / 91 level...and playing him more (from what I can tell) only builds up XP on his chassis, which you'd have to "convert to Free XP / GXP" using C-Bills, to make it actually relevant to the rest of your mechs, possibly, correct ? There's no real point in unlocking "every single Skill Tree node", if you already have the 91 you are happy with, correct ?

You may eventually decide to rebuild the mech with a different weapons load and set up your Skill Tree differently to complement that - or you may decide that making certain tradeoffs would benefit your current loadout better than what you have currently set up.

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3.) Going off the above question, are there many cases where a particular mech (either normal variant, Hero, or Champion config) is considered "notably better" than the other possible purchases ? I just don't want to make a newbie mistake and buy a "Mech-X1" (made up name) and have people go "oh, you dummy, you should have gotten the Mech-X5 model, that's the one with better armor and more weapon options !".

Usually it's down to the specific build.

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4.) I have seen most of the Store mechs grant special "perks" / traits as part of their statsline. These can be improved armor, or better charge times on Gauss (Fafnir-5, I think)...or similar. Is there an easy link / list to an excel doc or such, that lays out all of these unique traits, so I could consider them for possible future pickups ?

See Smurfy's and MechDB for reference. MechDB accounts for omnimech set bonuses, which Smurfy doesn't, but Smurfy's layout makes it quicker to see the quirks and hardpoints.

Also, certain variants have higher or lower mobility - see https://docs.google....t#gid=710224299

Do note that Clan omnimechs are more complicated - you can swap out arms, legs, heads and side torsos between variants (the CT is fixed, however). This breaks the set-of-eight quirks (which only apply if you have a full set of matching omnipods), but some pods may provide their own quirks and better hardpoints than others.
To give an example, any Kit Fox can swap pods to run 4xSRM-6 but a Kit Fox D with set quirks will have an additional -5% cooldown and -5% heat (or you can forego those quirks to install ECM and/or Jump Jets using other omnipods).

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Are there any ballistic-particular ones that I'd probably enjoy ? LB-10, Autocannons, or RAC's are probably the guns I've had the most fun with, to date - so perhaps mechs with special traits relating to those, you can recommend ??

Warhammer 6R, Marauder 3R, Rifleman 3C or 3N , Dragon, Hunchback IIC (including the -C variant), Mad Cat Mk II B, Centurion, Enforcer, Bushwacker X1 or X2 (X1 has extra ballistic range, X2 is slightly more mobile).

The Mk II B would be fairly similar to your Annihilator except it's faster, can do jump jets and all ballistics are arm-mounted allowing you to focus fire better. In low tiers it can carry matches with brute force alone and even in T1 it can solo a substantial chunk of the enemy team.

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5.) Lastly, is there a clear benefit to some of the largest mech weapon types, like LB-20, or AC-20, or the like ?

High burst damage. When you're up close and personal, you want to kill enemy mechs F-A-S-T, not sandblast their armor to medium orange by the time they're done coring your mech.

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some of the 1000+ damage matches I've produced in the Ultraviolet mech, have seen me blasting away at enemy targets at ranges of 900+, where they (in many cases) seem not able to return effective fire on me, and I just keep blowing off components and such, with the 8 LB-2's.

This will change as you go up in tiers and your opponents get better at breaking line of sight, using cover and prioritizing removing your mech from play.

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This 'seems' to tell me that long-range combat potential is an important part of MWO battle success ? For example, the few times I've tried out Fafnir (I bought one as my 4th and final mech, as of now)... I tend to do massively worse than in the other 3 (using the 2 Hvy Gauss setup that it's famous for, I think). The fact I have to be so close to effectively damage stuff with those weapons, means I find it much harder to get damage in (plus the Gauss charge up thing is something I'm still learning - it's much different than the other weapon types I've used).

Brawling isn't an easy skill to learn - the brawler has to get in close range without unnecessarily exposing himself to enemy fire (knowing the map layout and nearby cover is VERY important) and then focus on taking out enemies as quickly as possible (it's not just damage, it's where that damage goes - CT, legs or primary weapon mounts, depending on what you're facing)

Edited by Horseman, 10 April 2019 - 04:34 AM.

[AureliusDean]

As a guy that ran a match with you this morning, I gotta say you are cheery and competent for such a new player. Welcome to the community.

My advice though is that the next 20$ you spend should be on a mic. Comms are life in this game.

[Rosh87]

Ha ! I actually do have a mic / headset, Aurelius (and thank you for your kind words - and everyone else for their great thoughts and advice to me here) ... I just rarely wear the headset when playing as I'm usually listening to something in the background. Yesterday, it was a bit unusual, but maintenance guys from my building were in my apartment fixing the AC generator, so that was another reason I didn't want to be talking on mic. But, I take your point - MWO seems really heavily geared towards audio comms, so I'll consider that in the future ;-)

* will respond more in detail to Horseman and others later / after work - etc. !

Edited by Rosh87, 10 April 2019 - 10:02 AM.

[TheCaptainJZ]

Rosh87, on 09 April 2019 - 10:58 AM, said:

1.) Premium Time: Is this worth it if I play 3-5 days a week, going forwards ? And is it considered more viable to buy it 'straight up', or (as I've read sometimes) to get it via "packs / bundles" in the store ? The reason I ask is some of the bundles cost like 3000 to 9000 "MC" ...which seems expensive. How much is the Premium in terms of MC, for a year ? I assumed it was like WOT or other games of this sort, where a year is 99$ - but I couldn't easily find a "click here for Premium" button, in the standard Garage / Bay area, so I thought I'd ask here.

Yes, if you get something like a month at a time. It's the most economical to get this as part of a mech pack. There are plenty to choose from, so would be a good investment. Look for ones that come with a Hero or Special mech with a cbill boost. Don't buy Premium time solo from the website gift store or any of the single mechs offered (if they still do that). Also don't buy a Mastery Pack from the store, if those are still sold. You don't need 3 variants of a chassis to unlock skills anymore, and it's not the best return on investment.

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2.) Is there a point to having more than one "type" of a Mech, other than just for Collector purposes ? Like, I got the Annihilator variant with the 6 ballistic hardpoints, and had orginally been running it with 6 AC-5's, I think...which was kind of fun...but honestly my results have exploded upwards / better with these 4-LB10's I've been using the last few days, so I'm not sure if one setup is clearly superior to the other.

Related to this...I got my main Annihilator...and have maxed out his Skill Points at the 91 / 91 level...and playing him more (from what I can tell) only builds up XP on his chassis, which you'd have to "convert to Free XP / GXP" using C-Bills, to make it actually relevant to the rest of your mechs, possibly, correct ? There's no real point in unlocking "every single Skill Tree node", if you already have the 91 you are happy with, correct ?

More than one variant? It used to be mandatory to own 3 different variants to unlock all the skills but thankfully that part went away. It's optional, but since each variant has different hardpoints and quirks, you might get a good experience out of a different variant. Some chassis are more similar than others across variants.

No, 91 skill points is all you need. If you want to tweak it further you can, but nobody would ever unlock all 200+. Also, once you get 91 unlocked, to convert any excess mech XP to general XP costs MC (real money). Personally, I avoid this because I'd rather earn it in a new mech than pay money to do it. But in any case, I still have a lot left over from the conversion from the old skill tree so I haven't needed to buy SP period.

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3.) Going off the above question, are there many cases where a particular mech (either normal variant, Hero, or Champion config) is considered "notably better" than the other possible purchases ? I just don't want to make a newbie mistake and buy a "Mech-X1" (made up name) and have people go "oh, you dummy, you should have gotten the Mech-X5 model, that's the one with better armor and more weapon options !".

Better variant? Yes. Notably better? Not usually that clear cut. Which one is best is a case-by-case basis. But I'll tell you it's never a Champion variant (the ( C ) designated variants of any given chassis, not Champion, the mech chassis). Heros have unique hardpoints, Champions do not, and are a standard cbill variant that has an XP boost. Not worth paying MC for. Often given out as event rewards, though. You can customize them just like the standard variant they are.

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4.) I have seen most of the Store mechs grant special "perks" / traits as part of their statsline. These can be improved armor, or better charge times on Gauss (Fafnir-5, I think)...or similar. Is there an easy link / list to an excel doc or such, that lays out all of these unique traits, so I could consider them for possible future pickups ? Are there any ballistic-particular ones that I'd probably enjoy ? LB-10, Autocannons, or RAC's are probably the guns I've had the most fun with, to date - so perhaps mechs with special traits relating to those, you can recommend ??

Definitely use the links to Smurfy or MechDB posted above. But in reality, you probably want to pick a chassis for other reasons, then look at quirks last. Or ask around for which mechs are best for x, y, or z and the community will give you suggestions based on their wealth of knowledge and the current meta. Also remember quirks are subject to change, especially in the popular mechs (unpopular mechs might lie dormant forever).

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5.) Lastly, is there a clear benefit to some of the largest mech weapon types, like LB-20, or AC-20, or the like ? It seems (just from my brief looking over the options), that weapons in MWO sort of go "the smaller / weaker they are, the farther they shoot" and "the bigger / stronger they are, the shorter their range - in some cases, massively shorter". Given that engagement ranges are quite varied, in the matches I've played in - I can assume there's not a "clear winner"...but some of the 1000+ damage matches I've produced in the Ultraviolet mech, have seen me blasting away at enemy targets at ranges of 900+, where they (in many cases) seem not able to return effective fire on me, and I just keep blowing off components and such, with the 8 LB-2's. This 'seems' to tell me that long-range combat potential is an important part of MWO battle success ? For example, the few times I've tried out Fafnir (I bought one as my 4th and final mech, as of now)... I tend to do massively worse than in the other 3 (using the 2 Hvy Gauss setup that it's famous for, I think). The fact I have to be so close to effectively damage stuff with those weapons, means I find it much harder to get damage in (plus the Gauss charge up thing is something I'm still learning - it's much different than the other weapon types I've used).

The result is that I can take the LB-Annihilator, LB2-Ultraviolet, or RAC / AC-Mauler I have, and produce regularly between 600 and 1200 damage a match.. but when I take the Fafnir out, I think the best I ever got was 600 something. I'm sure it's user-error / new guy mistakes, but this Range question got me thinking ...maybe the longer range stuff is just more useful in the game. So I thought I'd put this in as my final question. Thanks to anyone who made it this far, and for any potential answers / advice you can provide to me ! Great game and I look forward to enjoying it for a long time to come !

Yeah, it's a trade-off. Generally AC2's don't deal enough damage to be effective, but the reason it's working for you might be because you're constantly hitting the enemy and they are freaking out and can't handle the constant plinking. This should change as you move up the tiers. Dual Gauss can be highly lethal, but you have to know how to play it and it's practically the exact opposite playstyle. Another thing the playerbase will remind you--high damage is sort of an indicator that you're not placing shots where it counts to actually kill mechs. For instance, you can take out an assault with, say, 80 pts of damage if you core the CT from the back. You get a kill and took out a major threat, but you didn't have a lot of damage to pad your end of round score. Still, it was better than if you did 500 damage to that same mech, taking off an arm first, then a torso, then a leg, etc. while it stayed alive doing damage to you or your team. So damage isn't everything.
Personally, I like mid-range engagements of 400-600 meters or so. That's a good range for an AC 10 or large laser. I do sometimes play some brawlers with AC 20s and lasers. It allows you to hit hard and then turn away. With something like an AC2, you have to constantly face the enemy to continue doing damage which leaves you exposed to the enemy. One-on-one, it's not a problem, but one on five or twelve, it is.

[Rosh87]

TheCaptainJZ, on 15 April 2019 - 04:06 PM, said:

Yes, if you get something like a month at a time. It's the most economical to get this as part of a mech pack. There are plenty to choose from, so would be a good investment. Look for ones that come with a Hero or Special mech with a cbill boost. Don't buy Premium time solo from the website gift store or any of the single mechs offered (if they still do that). Also don't buy a Mastery Pack from the store, if those are still sold. You don't need 3 variants of a chassis to unlock skills anymore, and it's not the best return on investment.


More than one variant? It used to be mandatory to own 3 different variants to unlock all the skills but thankfully that part went away. It's optional, but since each variant has different hardpoints and quirks, you might get a good experience out of a different variant. Some chassis are more similar than others across variants.

No, 91 skill points is all you need. If you want to tweak it further you can, but nobody would ever unlock all 200+. Also, once you get 91 unlocked, to convert any excess mech XP to general XP costs MC (real money). Personally, I avoid this because I'd rather earn it in a new mech than pay money to do it. But in any case, I still have a lot left over from the conversion from the old skill tree so I haven't needed to buy SP period.


Better variant? Yes. Notably better? Not usually that clear cut. Which one is best is a case-by-case basis. But I'll tell you it's never a Champion variant (the ( C ) designated variants of any given chassis, not Champion, the mech chassis). Heros have unique hardpoints, Champions do not, and are a standard cbill variant that has an XP boost. Not worth paying MC for. Often given out as event rewards, though. You can customize them just like the standard variant they are.


Definitely use the links to Smurfy or MechDB posted above. But in reality, you probably want to pick a chassis for other reasons, then look at quirks last. Or ask around for which mechs are best for x, y, or z and the community will give you suggestions based on their wealth of knowledge and the current meta. Also remember quirks are subject to change, especially in the popular mechs (unpopular mechs might lie dormant forever).

Yeah, it's a trade-off. Generally AC2's don't deal enough damage to be effective, but the reason it's working for you might be because you're constantly hitting the enemy and they are freaking out and can't handle the constant plinking. This should change as you move up the tiers. Dual Gauss can be highly lethal, but you have to know how to play it and it's practically the exact opposite playstyle. Another thing the playerbase will remind you--high damage is sort of an indicator that you're not placing shots where it counts to actually kill mechs. For instance, you can take out an assault with, say, 80 pts of damage if you core the CT from the back. You get a kill and took out a major threat, but you didn't have a lot of damage to pad your end of round score. Still, it was better than if you did 500 damage to that same mech, taking off an arm first, then a torso, then a leg, etc. while it stayed alive doing damage to you or your team. So damage isn't everything.
Personally, I like mid-range engagements of 400-600 meters or so. That's a good range for an AC 10 or large laser. I do sometimes play some brawlers with AC 20s and lasers. It allows you to hit hard and then turn away. With something like an AC2, you have to constantly face the enemy to continue doing damage which leaves you exposed to the enemy. One-on-one, it's not a problem, but one on five or twelve, it is.

* Excellent suggestions and points for consideration, by everyone here - thank you !

I actually had wanted to do a follow-up..as my progress has continued in just the last week, and I've managed to punch through into Tier-3 already ! I'm about 1/3rd of the way into the "Tier 3 Progress Bar", at this point. The battles are generally a bit different than in the lower levels...mainly because people seem to use the Airstrike and Artillery frequently (at least one a game, from someone, whereas I hardly ever saw them in Tier-5 and Tier-4 battles).

Still, I've been able to continue to produce decent results, including several 1000-damage games in the last few days (I had a 1025 damage match in my Direwolf Ultraviolence this morn, on Frozen City - just absolutely my best Mech, I think - as I make insane use of the Enhanced Zoom and 1200+ rounds of LB-2x ammo, to just terrorize things from long-range, and get a lot of Component Destroyed bonuses, as I blow off guns and arms, I guess).

I actually went and purchased my first ever Heavy Mech (after only piloting my 5 Assaults since starting with the game) and it was the Ebon Jaguar... it's quite different (much, MUCH squishier, I found - after losing my first 3 matches with it, lol). I eventually did some searches on the forum here, and found someone pointed out its meant to be more of a "pop out and do heavy alpha, then duck away" style - and less "stand there and tank hits" - like I could with my Assault types (most of the time). So, I reconfigured it a bit to more of a Laser + Gauss setup, and then produced a 635-damage match on another Frozen City match, which was my first Win with it - and quite fun. You definitely have to play it different to what I've been used to, but I enjoy that about this game (how vastly different one Mech to another can feel - the PGI guys did a nice job capturing some Individuality to each of these machines, so kudos to them for that).

======

Future Heavies I've read about that I might pick up at some point: Rifleman (has good LB-10 quirks I read), Timberwolf (looks really cool, used to be really good - maybe less so now ?), Warhammer (decent ?), Marauders (these come highly recommended, with good tanky quirks - much more so than the Ebon Jag at least, I believe), and possibly the Quickdraw (Hero)

Future Mediums of interest: Bushwhacker, Huntsman, Crab, Hunchback, Stormcrow, Vindicator

(do these sound like generally useful and productive Mechs for me to eventually get into ?)

========

Lastly...I saw the alerts about the new Patch today, and somewhat on a whim (I did my Taxes yesterday and saw what I was getting back - lol - so felt more inclined to spend a bit ).... I got the "Ultimate" pack / bundle thing for this new Marauder Mech everyone was talking about. It looks really cool (I think I had a toy of this, years and years ago, as a child)... and the "Bundles" everyone has been saying are far better values than buying mechs individually, or buying the Premium Time and such, on its own. So I think this means I will be getting several new Mechs of this "type"- each with its own weapon options and loadout potentials. I guess this means a lot more stuff to level up and have fun with - and hopefully the Mech is decent (from what I could tell, it seems to have a lot of Energy weapon options, and its rather large - they had a pic of it near an Atlas, so I believe it's considered an Assault Mech ).

Overall - I'm really having so much fun with MWO, and am so happy you guys are kind and generous with your time and your perspective. I never realized how long-standing this game was (my only other big PC game investment in terms of time and $ over the years has been World of Tanks - but I've gradually stopped playing that for the most part). With MWO, I really like the fact that there is a light RPG element to it - where you have a lot of freedom to craft your own setup with a Mech, and then try it out - and tweak and refine and so forth. You don't get that level of modification with a lot of similar genre games.

----

Anyways - I've rambled on enough for now - hopefully you'll continue to humor me and my new-guy Enthusiasm !

Edited by Rosh87, 16 April 2019 - 09:46 AM.

[Horseman]

Rosh87, on 16 April 2019 - 09:44 AM, said:

Future Heavies I've read about that I might pick up at some point: Rifleman (has good LB-10 quirks I read),

There are several different models of Rifleman with different quirks and equipment. Check the quirks and hardpoints before committing!

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Timberwolf (looks really cool, used to be really good - maybe less so now ?),

Can still kick some ***, but yeah - there are better options these days.

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Warhammer (decent ?),

Both the 6R and the Black Widow, yes.

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Marauders (these come highly recommended, with good tanky quirks - much more so than the Ebon Jag at least, I believe),

Go for the 3R. Can do some decent dakka setups, can be built for brawl... and can survive just about anything.

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Future Mediums of interest: Bushwhacker, Huntsman, Crab, Hunchback, Stormcrow, Vindicator

Not Vindicator. It had a bit of resurgence in Solaris (which has since ended due to other mechs taking over) but in all other situations it really doesn't do anything a 50 tonner can't do better.

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Lastly...I saw the alerts about the new Patch today, and somewhat on a whim (I did my Taxes yesterday and saw what I was getting back - lol - so felt more inclined to spend a bit ).... I got the "Ultimate" pack / bundle thing for this new Marauder Mech everyone was talking about. It looks really cool (I think I had a toy of this, years and years ago, as a child)... and the "Bundles" everyone has been saying are far better values than buying mechs individually, or buying the Premium Time and such, on its own. So I think this means I will be getting several new Mechs of this "type"- each with its own weapon options and loadout potentials. I guess this means a lot more stuff to level up and have fun with - and hopefully the Mech is decent (from what I could tell, it seems to have a lot of Energy weapon options, and its rather large - they had a pic of it near an Atlas, so I believe it's considered an Assault Mech ).

... should have gotten Mechwarrior 5 preorder instead, as it bundles the pack with it, PLUS a huge pile of MC PLUS premium time PLUS some bonus C-Bill boosted mechs PLUS a bunch of cosmetics. The value on that purchase is insane (I've gotten it when all four bonus mechs were attached, I think now it's down to just two as the end of order deadline is coming)

[Rosh87]

Horseman, on 16 April 2019 - 10:24 AM, said:

There are several different models of Rifleman with different quirks and equipment. Check the quirks and hardpoints before committing!
Can still kick some ***, but yeah - there are better options these days.
Both the 6R and the Black Widow, yes.
Go for the 3R. Can do some decent dakka setups, can be built for brawl... and can survive just about anything.
Not Vindicator. It had a bit of resurgence in Solaris (which has since ended due to other mechs taking over) but in all other situations it really doesn't do anything a 50 tonner can't do better.

... should have gotten Mechwarrior 5 preorder instead, as it bundles the pack with it, PLUS a huge pile of MC PLUS premium time PLUS some bonus C-Bill boosted mechs PLUS a bunch of cosmetics. The value on that purchase is insane (I've gotten it when all four bonus mechs were attached, I think now it's down to just two as the end of order deadline is coming)

Thanks for your comments on the Heavy / Medium mechs -! On MW-5...I'm not sure I'm actually going to get that yet - as I never played any games in this series before this one, so didn't want to commit on an entirely new game, per se. But I take your point about the combo-values they love to offer. I'll always be on the lookout for these, as I continue my play.

* as a means of assessing my progress, is it considered good to be in Tier-3 within what amounts to basically 2-3 weeks of actually "steady" playing ? Also - while I can have stinker games (like when the team loses 12-0 or 11-1 or such)... what is considered a good metric of how you are doing - per type of Mech (weight class) ? Example... while I can produce 1000 dmg games sometimes, in the Assaults, I don't get the impression that this is "expected" - technically. Like..if you did 750 dmg in an assault, with 2 Kills, 2 KMDD, and 8 Components KO'd, for example...is that still considered "a good game" ?

How does the game calculate this kind of stuff when you are in lesser Mech sizes though ? Surely they have some kind of scale setup, so that it doesn't expect the same in a Medium as you can do in an Assault, right ? Or is it actually scaled the same, but it assumes you will score more of the Agility-related bonuses like "Hit and Run" and such - that you wouldn't likely get in most Assaults ?

------

* oh, one last question I had.... I actually got into my first ever "Incursion" match since starting the game... apparently it's very rare to be selected, and I don't recall Ever seeing it before getting into Tier-3 (I mean, seeing it as a possible option at the bottom of the map select screen even !). The guys in the battle told me you were trying to get the enemy Base , but that there were Turrets and such defending... it was kind of unusual. Plus there were Lightning Bolts all over the map - very unusual compared to the 'normal' modes I was used to.

[Horseman]

Rosh87, on 16 April 2019 - 10:49 AM, said:

* as a means of assessing my progress, is it considered good to be in Tier-3 within what amounts to basically 2-3 weeks of actually "steady" playing ? Also - while I can have stinker games (like when the team loses 12-0 or 11-1 or such)... what is considered a good metric of how you are doing - per type of Mech (weight class) ? Example... while I can produce 1000 dmg games sometimes, in the Assaults, I don't get the impression that this is "expected" - technically. Like..if you did 750 dmg in an assault, with 2 Kills, 2 KMDD, and 8 Components KO'd, for example...is that still considered "a good game" ?

It is a good game, but overall you should be looking at your average statistics on the leaderboards (check https://mwomercs.com...le/leaderboards ) rather than individual matches.

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How does the game calculate this kind of stuff when you are in lesser Mech sizes though ? Surely they have some kind of scale setup, so that it doesn't expect the same in a Medium as you can do in an Assault, right ? Or is it actually scaled the same, but it assumes you will score more of the Agility-related bonuses like "Hit and Run" and such - that you wouldn't likely get in most Assaults ?

Scoring doesn't change. You have to rely on speed and evasion for survival, but a competent pilot can crank out 600-700 damage with a light mech.
Also, the Artillery Strike/Air Stike consumables are worth their weight in gold for light mechs.

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* oh, one last question I had.... I actually got into my first ever "Incursion" match since starting the game... apparently it's very rare to be selected, and I don't recall Ever seeing it before getting into Tier-3 (I mean, seeing it as a possible option at the bottom of the map select screen even !). The guys in the battle told me you were trying to get the enemy Base , but that there were Turrets and such defending... it was kind of unusual. Plus there were Lightning Bolts all over the map - very unusual compared to the 'normal' modes I was used to.

The patch notes for April 2017 explain the mode's mechanics a bit better: https://mwomercs.com.../1798#incursion

TL;DR:

• Losing your base is an immediate loss
  
• If you kill all opponents, you have to deal more damage to the enemy base than they did to yours before the match time runs out
  
• The lightning bolts are power generators. Mechs can grab a charge and bring it to one of the towers in your base to power it up for 2 minutes.
  
• The towers you want to pay attention to are Radar and Jamming towers. Radar tower periodically reveals enemy locations while Jamming tower provides an ECM effect over your team's half of the map.
  
• Destroying the turrets does not count towards base destruction. Keep this in mind, sometimes you don't have time to waste.

[TheCaptainJZ]

Rosh87, on 16 April 2019 - 10:49 AM, said:

* as a means of assessing my progress, is it considered good to be in Tier-3 within what amounts to basically 2-3 weeks of actually "steady" playing ? Also - while I can have stinker games (like when the team loses 12-0 or 11-1 or such)... what is considered a good metric of how you are doing - per type of Mech (weight class) ? Example... while I can produce 1000 dmg games sometimes, in the Assaults, I don't get the impression that this is "expected" - technically. Like..if you did 750 dmg in an assault, with 2 Kills, 2 KMDD, and 8 Components KO'd, for example...is that still considered "a good game" ?

How does the game calculate this kind of stuff when you are in lesser Mech sizes though ? Surely they have some kind of scale setup, so that it doesn't expect the same in a Medium as you can do in an Assault, right ? Or is it actually scaled the same, but it assumes you will score more of the Agility-related bonuses like "Hit and Run" and such - that you wouldn't likely get in most Assaults ?

You don't have a lot of total games played, so you are still moving up the scale at an accelerated rate. Pretty soon, you won't get a multiplier boost, if you even still do. It might be something like 100 matches is somewhat weighted? I don't recall.

Average damage per weight class might be (answers vary) 200-400 in a light, 300-600 in a medium, 400-800 in a heavy, 600+ in an assault. Those are just my very very rough ballpark numbers. We actually usually look at average match score since that incorporates more than just kills and damage. This also scales better across all weight classes and is what determines if you move up or down the tier bar (and also whether you won or lost). Average match score is about 250.

Also, the tier bar is more of an exp bar because if your team wins, you can't move down, the way it's designed. You can stay neutral if your team wins and you did terrible but you can't go down. You can only move down on a loss. Since all players' win/loss rate should be roughly 50/50 due to the matchmaker, all players will eventually move up to tier 1 or 2 if they play enough or are good enough.

[Rosh87]

TheCaptainJZ, on 16 April 2019 - 02:48 PM, said:

You don't have a lot of total games played, so you are still moving up the scale at an accelerated rate. Pretty soon, you won't get a multiplier boost, if you even still do. It might be something like 100 matches is somewhat weighted? I don't recall.

Average damage per weight class might be (answers vary) 200-400 in a light, 300-600 in a medium, 400-800 in a heavy, 600+ in an assault. Those are just my very very rough ballpark numbers. We actually usually look at average match score since that incorporates more than just kills and damage. This also scales better across all weight classes and is what determines if you move up or down the tier bar (and also whether you won or lost). Average match score is about 250.

Also, the tier bar is more of an exp bar because if your team wins, you can't move down, the way it's designed. You can stay neutral if your team wins and you did terrible but you can't go down. You can only move down on a loss. Since all players' win/loss rate should be roughly 50/50 due to the matchmaker, all players will eventually move up to tier 1 or 2 if they play enough or are good enough.

Interesting ! I looked up my stats, thus far, using that Leaderboards link that Horseman kindly posted (I would assume that it is basically my career stats, as I only played a handful of games - mostly the ones to get the Cadet Bonuses, back in late January - and everything else has been in the last few weeks, when I've gone crazy with loving and playing this game a ton).

It shows the following (please let me know if this is considered reasonable / competent / helpful to my teams, etc - as I have no idea what the metrics are that you Vets look at, in this regard):

Rosh87-
186 Total Wins / 157 Total Losses / 1.18 W-L Ratio / 444 Total Kills /
209 Total Deaths / 2.12 KD / 345 Games / Avg Match Score: 322

---------

Hopefully, I'm doing a decent job. My main frustration is when I take my slowest mechs, like Annihilator 2a, and everyone seems to "leave you behind", instead of waiting for you to safely reach the battle lines. The result is that you have games where annoying Light Mechs harass and shred you from behind, while you are still waddling towards the rest of the team, and they basically 'give away" 100 tons of power that could otherwise help us win the fight. I sometimes will ask for a kind Light or Medium to please give us Escort for a minute or so after spawn, to safely ensure we reach the main group, but it's rare that someone actually WILL do that for us, lol

----

Oh - a few more minor questions (very brief Lore Ones):

what is Sarna ? I know it's the name for the main Battletech Wiki page, but I couldn't readily google up a specific reason for the name ? I'm assuming it's something famous in the Lore, like the Strana Mechty place, or Tukkayid, but figured you legends would better know the answer.

And, from what I have read recently - it seems these ComStar guys are kind of devious and ...sort of manipulating a lot of things in the history of Inner Sphere, from the shadows. Are they more "good guys" or 'bad guys" - or do such terms not really apply in the Battle Tech universe, as they might in other Sci Fi (Star Wars, Warhammer 40K, etc) ?


Lastly, what is considered the "most Advanced / modern" Mech design in the BT / MW universe - at the current point in their timeline ? Don't they ever create "truly new designs" - to replace or update some of the aging, 500+ year old models ? Or is the lack of a lot of forward movement due to the fact they lost so much tech and stuff, from all their past wars ? I'm just curious if we'll ever see (for example) 150-Ton mechs or something crazy, if they continue the BT Timeline far enough into their future ?



Thanks for all your guidance and info, thus far - I'm really enjoying the game and appreciative of your shared insights.

[Horseman]

Rosh87, on 18 April 2019 - 03:26 AM, said:

It shows the following (please let me know if this is considered reasonable / competent / helpful to my teams, etc - as I have no idea what the metrics are that you Vets look at, in this regard):
Rosh87-
186 Total Wins / 157 Total Losses / 1.18 W-L Ratio / 444 Total Kills /
209 Total Deaths / 2.12 KD / 345 Games / Avg Match Score: 322
---------
Hopefully, I'm doing a decent job.

1.18 Win/Loss is good - it means that statistically, teams you're on tend to win more often.
2.12 Kill/Death is good - it means that statistically, you're picking up slack for your teammates rather than the other way around.

Quote

My main frustration is when I take my slowest mechs, like Annihilator 2a, and everyone seems to "leave you behind", instead of waiting for you to safely reach the battle lines. The result is that you have games where annoying Light Mechs harass and shred you from behind, while you are still waddling towards the rest of the team, and they basically 'give away" 100 tons of power that could otherwise help us win the fight. I sometimes will ask for a kind Light or Medium to please give us Escort for a minute or so after spawn, to safely ensure we reach the main group, but it's rare that someone actually WILL do that for us, lol

For Quick Play, assault mechs need to go at minimum 45 KPH - even an Annihilator can do 48 without Speed Tweak. Build accordingly and don't hesitate to call for the team to regroup and wait for the assaults if you see your formation spreading too much.

Quote

what is Sarna ? I know it's the name for the main Battletech Wiki page, but I couldn't readily google up a specific reason for the name ? I'm assuming it's something famous in the Lore, like the Strana Mechty place, or Tukkayid, but figured you legends would better know the answer.

A star system. I don't know why they chose that name, though. http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Sarna

Quote

And, from what I have read recently - it seems these ComStar guys are kind of devious and ...sort of manipulating a lot of things in the history of Inner Sphere, from the shadows. Are they more "good guys" or 'bad guys" - or do such terms not really apply in the Battle Tech universe, as they might in other Sci Fi (Star Wars, Warhammer 40K, etc) ?

Shades of grey. Comstar has been sabotaging technological recovery across the Inner Sphere for a long time, but without their communication system the Inner Sphere wouldn't really exist. After Tukayyid, Comstar splits in two and the more "villainous" aspects become a separate faction - Word of Blake - which subsequently attempts to wage war on the original Comstar and the rest of the Inner Sphere.

Quote

Don't they ever create "truly new designs" - to replace or update some of the aging, 500+ year old models ?

They do.

Quote

I'm just curious if we'll ever see (for example) 150-Ton mechs or something crazy, if they continue the BT Timeline far enough into their future ?

They already exist in tabletop: http://www.sarna.net...avy_BattleMechs

[TheCaptainJZ]

I'm not a lore buff, but there are no objectively good or bad guys or factions. They're all shades of gray, which I suppose is why each one has their fans here. Also, it's about perspective. Obviously, the Clans are the bad guys to the IS and vice-versa, so again, everything is gray.

At this point in the timeline, the Bushwacker is considered a "new" model, as well as the Uziel as I understand it. 100 T is the heaviest mechs I've seen represented in any of the video games, except for that final boss of MechAssault. My knowledge is limited mainly to the video games.

Oh, about Annihilators, they are painfully slow, but they pack a big wallop. I tend to not do well in mine. I'm not a good assault pilot. Too slow, too unmaneuverable. I still play them sometimes. You can't really expect anyone to support you in QP which is basically all I play. At least with a heavy, I can keep up with the team without any effort.

Edited by TheCaptainJZ, 18 April 2019 - 05:33 AM.

[JC Daxion]

I'll have to disagree about premium time. I personally like to grab Day passes when i have a lot of time to game. Just 250MC, gets you 24 hours of gametime. (10 for the price of a month, which typically can help me more. Often i just play for a few hours or take breaks which can sneak up on me, Buy a month play for 3 days then not play for 2 weeks is kinda a waste) If on the other hand you buy a day pass at the right time like say early one evening, you can game late into the night, sleep a bit and wake up and game again. You can easily level up 2-3 mechs and bank 8-10m+ from a single day pass. that is a very good value of time and money.


that said, if you pre-order mech 5 you get 12kMC. so a ton of day passes and some heroes Or hold onto it like me, and hope they give us a 50% off a year of premium sometime soon (costs 24k normally).. That is what i'm waiting for.


a good hero is well worth the MC, especially on sale. My Favorite are the Topdog, and Jester. both are energy boats.


So 50 bucks on the pre-order will get you a couple of hero type mechs, 12k MC, a few months premium and some other goodies. More than worth it if you are enjoying this game. Also if eventually you think you would grab mech 5 even at 50%.. this would be a far better deal if you are playing MWO.


another trick to getting cheaper month's of premium is to buy the Light mech packs. they cost around 14 bucks, you get a month of premium, 3 bays, and 3 mechs. You can often sell 1 or 2 of the mechs if you don't like um and still come out ahead over the cost of strait up buying a month. But still 50% off a year is the way to go.. it's basically 50 bucks for a full year of premium but you need to wait for sales for that


PS stock up on mechbays when they have 50% off sales.


Your stats, take them with a grain of salt, they are decent for sure, but you have to take into account that you are in t5, either playing against other new players, or players that are just not that good and have been in t5 for years. Some will say tiers are just an EXP bar, but that is only for people that perform above a certain level. There are many that don't hit that threshhold. You are above that for sure.

Basically the stats tell me your fairly decent, and have a decent grasp of a shooter.. So keep on gaming, and having fun and maybe you will be a top player someday

Edited by JC Daxion, 18 April 2019 - 04:14 PM.

[JC Daxion]

TheCaptainJZ, on 15 April 2019 - 04:06 PM, said:

Yes, if you get something like a month at a time. It's the most economical to get this as part of a mech pack. There are plenty to choose from, so would be a good investment. Look for ones that come with a Hero or Special mech with a cbill boost. Don't buy Premium time solo from the website gift store or any of the single mechs offered (if they still do that). Also don't buy a Mastery Pack from the store, if those are still sold. You don't need 3 variants of a chassis to unlock skills anymore, and it's not the best return on investment.

there are a bunch of mastery packs that are still solid deals which get even better when they go on sale, the thing is you really need to know which ones. The light ones as i stated before are around 15 bucks which include 3 bays, a month premium, a hero and 2 other mechs, one being a champion. A good champion can be solid if you like the mech to grind GXP. The griffin pack For a sparky which is a medium pulse boat, the treb witht eh coup de loure, a fun light hunter, and black jack with its arrow, (LPL+machine guns) are all solid mediums.. The light packages are a great way to get a month premium, and c-bills along with bays. 5 bucks cheaper than the normal mech packs, and have a hero.

the champion mechs give bonus GXP which can be used to help level any mech, so if you get a solid champion that you really enjoy combined with Premium time, or even better a double XP event+premium can be a great way to grind GXP which is actually quite useful.


It really has to do with how much you wanna spend, or how to get the most bang for your buck. for example, to this day one of the best deals around is the Resistance II pack. It has a wolfhound, crab, black knight and Mauler, along with a special version which is +30%-cbills.. +36 colors, +6 faction camoes for each mech you can change at any time, and 2 months premium! this package goes on sale at times for around 56 bucks, but even at 80 its still solid. It also sets you up for 2 new loyalty mechs down the road,, no clue what they will be at this time, but every year they give them away. So you will be eligible for a top teir IS reward.

If you prefer clan side, the Wave III pack is solid and so is the Origins package, as those set you up with top tier clan side. The difference is less faction camo, and the wave III pack only has 12 colors i think, the origins is 24 or 36. Wave III package has the arctic cheeta, shadow cat, ebon jag and executioner.. i enjoy all, but the EXE is very much a hit or miss mech for most. (that package costs more at 120) the IIC package has the Jenner, Hunchback, orion and highlander.. the HBK's are some of the top mechs in the game, One of the jenners is great, the highlander is solid, the orion is more hit or miss depending on the player, not a great mech, but not completely horrible. But again, your getting a lot of bays, premium and paint.. just the paint alone is worth more than the package if you buy lots of them. (Origins pack is 80 bucks)


another good deal is the Solaris pack over on steam. It is 20 or 25 bucks and has 7 heroes, with 4 that are really solid. It can go on sale for as low as 15 bucks which is great. It also gives you the MC loyalty reward. (typically a medium IS mech)

So what i'm saying is there are some old packs that are very much worth getting.. others not so much.. Those Heroes+premium can really boost your C-bills! I think my jester bought me 20+ mechs in bonus C-bills alone.

Edited by JC Daxion, 18 April 2019 - 04:18 PM.