22 replies to this topic

[FRAGTAST1C]

The AI teammates don't shoot often enough to sustain a brawling encounter and they derp out when having to use weapons that have different optimal ranges.

Also, the missions rated 50+ difficulty don't necessarily allow for brawling anyway 'cause you get surrounded rather quickly and the garrisons get reinforced quite often and that too, with Heavies, Mediums and an Assault while bringing in a whole lot of vehicles.

Best thing to do would be to have an optimal range of 400+m across your entire lance while being able to deal with cqc.

If I'm wrong, tell me what I'm doing wrong 'cause the MLs + SRM Quickdraw, AC10 + SRM + LRM15 + ML Orion, 2x AC10 + MLs Jagermech + Warhammer get pretty banged up after each missions, especially the Orion and Quickdraw as they're more "brawl" oriented. The only mech that doesn't require a refit is the Warhammer 'cause I'm in it and wouldn't dream of letting anyone pilot the DHS boat.

[MiG77]

Brawling does work just fine for AI (ofcourse they are not in human level, but dont expect them to be. They are not that in any role). In my campaing AI that have brawler mech actually constantly do more damage than ones with sniper or support role. They also take damage more, so if you use brawlers you have to be one aswell (Enemy AI seems to priorize you over them if you are in range) to mitigate some damage. My usual lance composition have 2-3 brawlers and 1-2 snipers/support. Snipers/Support is used to mainly take out tanks/VTOL,s before they can get to range.

Edited by MiG77, 18 December 2019 - 10:47 PM.

[Dee Eight]

My method of brawling on the 80-90 difficulty missions is to shove six tier 4 medium lasers into the head of whatever mech is in my face.

[FRAGTAST1C]

MiG77, on 18 December 2019 - 10:39 PM, said:

They also take damage more, so if you use brawlers you have to be one aswell (Enemy AI seems to priorize you over them if you are in range)

To me, it's just too big of a hassle. I'll just issue commands and let them sort out the firing. Plus, they get shot less and don't lose components every mission.

[MiG77]

FRAGTAST1C, on 18 December 2019 - 10:48 PM, said:

To me, it's just too big of a hassle. I'll just issue commands and let them sort out the firing. Plus, they get shot less and don't lose components every mission.

Yep, but it is tradeoff. In brawler role they will help you to take opponents out faster (they will do more damage to them) but also take more damage to themselfs. In 80-90 difficult missions you really want someone else to take that damage aswell

[BoydofZINJ]

Their skills make a difference. I had a difficultly mission of 53 early on... that i was forced to save scum... when we failed miserably. I recently bought new pilots with higher maximum skills, but they were still green in skills that they learned. As a result, they were idiots on the field. I re-loaded before the mission and used experienced pilots and it was the same drops and the same patterns with the same enemy and friendly mechs - but with veteran pilots (even though their maximum was lower, their overall learned skills were higher) and all of a sudden we wiped the floor with the enemy and did not even lose an arm or weapon!

[Ilfi]

Don't have any issues getting my lance to brawl with MLs and SRMs. Just abuse Go To NAV and make them hold a power position whenever the chance is there. The other AI commands are actively detrimental.

[memorandum]

defend missions are horrible, my ai lance does more dmg to the buildings than the enemy does, even if i put them on hold outside the base they will shoot right through the city, off hold position they stomp away like a kid on a rainy day.

raids can be tedious, go to nav point destroy stuff go to next nav point, and in some cases you can get swarmed by tons of enemies because sometimes rng puts nav points too close to eachother, and both get activated as you close in.

assasination, same as raids.

warzone missions are fun, right to the action and usually in a city environment.

demolition is alot of fun, keep enemy count down and shoot the buildings and bug out when done.

multiple missions give the most cbills and salvage, it does require some management though.

finally had time to finish the main story yesterday, it was okay.

[panzer1b]

Just like in MWO, brawlers are really really situational, and the only time i managed to make pure brawling work was on the attack stronghold style missions (where you had 1 city style target and could order the entire lance to charge into it and just sit there forcing short ranges).

If you try to do any other mission as pure brawl, you are going to loose at higher levels most of the time. Early game, you can actually do best with 4 SRM bomber lights (SRMs are crazy powerful in this game for some reason unlike MWO), but lateron you should have at least 1-2 dedicated snipers on your team, preferably dual gauss with 1ERPPC (only mech ive actually seen that can do this is king crab, but there may be others later in the game, not sure, my friend who lets me play MW5 occasionally hasnt gotten that far, just finished the kane assasination mission for him actually yestreday and he had 3 king crabs available for it, 2 of which i outfitted with gauss+ppc builds, only way i could win kane mission actually).

Overall, ive just had best results with ranged PPFLD as the AI seems to be fairly solid with it. Myself i try to go for headshot/CT, and i let the AI sorta do their thing after forcing them to move to a good spot (namely put snipers atop hill, and leave the brawler to shoot those annoying cicadas that seem to be everywhere (no idea if its a lore thing, but ive yet to play a single game in MW5 without at least 2-4 of those total throughout, they are more common then lolcusts).

But yeah, if you get the attack city missions, then feel free to brawl, its alot more fun imo then sniper fest gauss party (its effective, but gets old really quickly), and those misisons actually play to the benefit of brawlers solong as you hold down W until within the target city and tell the lancemates to actually stay there (dont leave em on F2, F3 them into the best cover areas).

[Xaat Xuun]

I don't think I ever do a full brawl lance. I do in some contracts do like a 50/50, were 2 are more brawl, and 2 range

I may be imaging it, but it's like the first mission a AI pilot is in a new mech (different range/loadout) they're learning how to use it. And very Timid/Passive in how to use it, it is like they take a couple missions before they become more proficient with the loadout.
Just looks like it happens that way to me.
Strange but some AI Pilots, start out or just plan do better in certain loadouts then other AI Pilots I hired.
I have one that does good with SRM's, but lousy with LRM's, while the others are mediocre to bad with SRM's but great at LRM's

Lately been placing LRM's in the one that is bad with 'em, and kuz they seem to starting to get better with them, so maybe they need to learn,
again it just looks that way to me, and probably just me imaging it happening that way

[FRAGTAST1C]

I have a few 57 skill-rated AI lance-mates who have nearly maxed out piloting skills. The moment I put them in a brawler, they get shot to bits even when I'm telling them where to go and what to engage. By brawlers, I'm talking about MLs and SRMs or AC10 and SRMs. It doesn't matter where they are, they get their arms blown off first and then start getting cored.

I switched to a full long-range setup and now, none of them lose components.

[lazorbeamz]

FRAGTAST1C, on 18 December 2019 - 07:53 PM, said:

The AI teammates don't shoot often enough to sustain a brawling encounter and they derp out when having to use weapons that have different optimal ranges.

Also, the missions rated 50+ difficulty don't necessarily allow for brawling anyway 'cause you get surrounded rather quickly and the garrisons get reinforced quite often and that too, with Heavies, Mediums and an Assault while bringing in a whole lot of vehicles.

Best thing to do would be to have an optimal range of 400+m across your entire lance while being able to deal with cqc.

If I'm wrong, tell me what I'm doing wrong 'cause the MLs + SRM Quickdraw, AC10 + SRM + LRM15 + ML Orion, 2x AC10 + MLs Jagermech + Warhammer get pretty banged up after each missions, especially the Orion and Quickdraw as they're more "brawl" oriented. The only mech that doesn't require a refit is the Warhammer 'cause I'm in it and wouldn't dream of letting anyone pilot the DHS boat.

Your Orion was hurt because the AI thought it is a threat. Simply because the brawler Orion did a lot of damage. The AI tend to focus the biggest damage dealers.

Same story for me: I have as7-D and as7-RS lancemates. The D variant has ac20 and srm6, med lasers, lrm20. The RS has large lasers, AC10, srm4, lrm15. AS7-D ALWAYS does more damage. I dont know why. And yes the bots hate the AS7-D much more and focus it down so its always hurt at the end.

It is true that you ought not have a lot of AC20 and srm on your lancemates because these weapons require an explicit attack order for the AI to close in and engage at effective range. So they require a bit more babysitting.

Edited by lazorbeamz, 25 December 2019 - 02:56 AM.

[Scam Newton]

For the 270 Ton Drops I use 3 x TDR-5S and an ARC-2R. They cleaned up everything quickly.
For the 340 Ton Drops I use 2 x AS7-D's, ARC-2R, and WHM-6R.
For the 360-400 Ton Drops I'm using the 2 x AS7-D's, STK-3F and any variant of a Black Knight.
I haven't found much use for the small and medium Mechs once you progress past an early career point and you need the 300 plus ton drop decks to absorb the incoming damage.

[Fippy Darkpaw]

Haven't had huge problems with brawling so far, just be prepared to replace arms. That's why I tend to stick to mechs with their primary weapons in their torsos - Cataphracts, Quickdraws, Thunderbolts, Atlases. It's less painful to replace an arm when all it had was a medium laser, rather than a PPC or an autocannon.

I do use Stalkers (and Battlemasters), but CBills aren't so tight when you get to 340+ ton missions, so replacing some SRMs when the Stalker drops an arm isn't as painful.

[Vxheous]

I just stick PPCs into everything that can mount them. Using 2 AI Atlas-RS with PPCs and LRMs, literally just make them static turrets to soak damage

[FRAGTAST1C]

I found a Stalker 3F and mounted 4 SRM6+A and MLs with loads of DHS to keep it cool. It basically 2 shots most Heavy and Assault mechs. But it is still a bad idea to brawl. I could just sit back and use long-range weapons and be relatively undamaged by the time the mission ends instead of losing lots of armour on the Stalker.

[Vxheous]

FRAGTAST1C, on 26 December 2019 - 07:47 PM, said:

I found a Stalker 3F and mounted 4 SRM6+A and MLs with loads of DHS to keep it cool. It basically 2 shots most Heavy and Assault mechs. But it is still a bad idea to brawl. I could just sit back and use long-range weapons and be relatively undamaged by the time the mission ends instead of losing lots of armour on the Stalker.

I put 2 ERPPC and 4 ML on my stalker and just shoot from 800m away. 4 ML for the hordes of VTOL and tanks. Loaded with Double heatsinks + singles once out of slots, can shoot almost forever. I hate how the mouse sensitivity changes between different zoom settings though, wish we had the ability to set that ourselves.

Edited by Vxheous, 26 December 2019 - 07:58 PM.

[FRAGTAST1C]

Vxheous, on 26 December 2019 - 07:54 PM, said:

I hate how the mouse sensitivity changes between different zoom settings though, wish we had the ability to set that ourselves.

I still haven't found where that particular setting is. It is hidden away somewhere. I hate that thing, too.

[Jyi]

It's funny reading this whole topic, because during the beta I told you all this would happen, but everyone kept telling me "it's fine". This is so entertaining.

Though, of course, you're completely wrong again.

Brawling isn't just viable, it's pretty much one of the best options, because the enemy AI also da bad. Sure, you can sit at range and snipe with Gauss & ERpeeps, watch the AI shuffle and struggle without knowing what to do and pretty much break the game, but I don't consider that as viable, because it's boring and slow. Why do that when you can pretty much run up the enemy butts and launch a swarm of SRM's to destroy them? Well, I don't know if that can be really be counted brawling, as the enemy doesn't really know what to do, but it's still one of the more entertaining ways to play the game.

Of course, you might actually encounter some trouble eventually in higher difficulty missions with this approach due to the sheer volume of enemy tanks & choppers, but hey, at least there's SOME challenge in the game after all.

To put it shortly: just don't count in your AI being much more than meat shields, consider their arms as expendable and let them take care of the small fishes on the field while you disarm or destroy the enemy mechs, and you should be fine.

[FRAGTAST1C]

Jyi, on 29 December 2019 - 11:30 AM, said:

It's funny reading this whole topic, because during the beta I told you all this would happen, but everyone kept telling me "it's fine". This is so entertaining.

Sit down, sunshine. Don't drool more than you already have.

When I say "brawling", it means exactly that. Brawling. You can't really do that 'cause you'll lose components on your AI teammates and I don't consider refitting after every mission as acceptable.

I've actually got plenty of SRM 6+A Stalkers that destroy enemies quickly. The problem is still AI losing components. I keep a brawling lance for Defense and Warzone missions while the long-range lance is used for Raid, Demolition and Assassination contracts.

"Run up to enemy butts and launch a swarm of SRMs" lel Sure. Have fun running at 48kph trying to backstab enemies in Raid and Assassination missions at 80+ difficulty.