39 replies to this topic

[Yoho]

OZHomerOZ, on 15 August 2020 - 12:32 AM, said:

Missile locks take time, say three seconds or there abouts or longer.
If you stick to cover, expose, shoot and return to cover in less than 3 seconds, you very rarely almost never get locked.
If you don't get locked you don't really need AMS.

If your team mates do silly things like stand in the open and get missile locked I don't think you AMS will save them.
Teaching them to use cover and poke/trade to avoid missile locks in the first place, you help them more in the long run.

AMS can be useful, but if you don't need it you can use the weight for other things like bigger engines, armor, heatsinks and weapons.

Sometimes you get light mech in the back that highlights everyone. And, as I understand, there's no way to see that you're being seen. Right?

[General Solo]

First the light mech in the back that highlights everyone, can only highlight mechs so they briefly appear on their allies mini map, they are scouting pretty good.

But they can only hold a lock for missiles on one target as they cannot target multiple mechs simultaneously.

So what to do with Mr spotting from the back guy depends on context:

If you have the range, shoot the spotter in the face will break their lock nearly always.

If out of range you could use the Comm Wheel to "Target Spotted" the spotter, so that allies with range can suppress the spotter in the face to nearly always break their lock or in some other way respond to the spotter.

If the spotter is out of range of both your weapons and most importantly the enemies LRM's, chasing the sucker down will cause them to flea and break their target lock. Make sure you can kill him before you do this one or they might end you!
Even harassment can be sufficient for them to break their target lock.

Also these spotters can be hard to spot.
Using the different vision modes can help you see them.
The game makes a chirpy sound when target locks are made/broken (not sure forget which, I think broken), this sound can help you be aware of a spotter.

Most lights have poor sensor range so should be within 800 metres max

Sometimes just moving location by a few metres will break LOS and thus Locks.
For example if a spotter is on the wall on HPG, moving the fight to the other side of the dish will deny them LOS.
I use this example to illustrate the concept only

Missile locks don't happen by them selves

[letir]

Main point of the issue that you don't need AMS. On most of the maps you can dash from cover to cover and break locks enough to disrupt LRM-carriers. It come with experience, which is necessary part of the brawler gameplay - you need to know how to get closer without being mauled by long-ranged weaponry anyway.

That means AMS become dead weight - it only works against missiles, it's not very effective (unless you running 4X on Corsair), it has relativly small range to cover allies and taking too much weight for it's usefulness.


If you so worried about missile lock, ECM is your friend. There is plenty of 'Mechs with ECM, like Griffin (good SRM brawler). ECM weight basicly like one AMS system (1,5 on IS, which equal AMS+ammo). It work for you and allies in the same range, denying locking altogether, prolong lockig time for affected, disrupting locking and mini-map on the close distances, can be used for counter-ECM, dosen't need ammo or heat. Much more useful in general.

There also "Radar Deprivation" in the sensor skills, and this help you to lose enemy lock faster. At the 100% enemy will lose lock immediatly, and would need to re-lock you again. It also help bralwers and flankers to fight in the close combat by denying information for the enemy. Many players run 40-60% deprivation.

Edited by letir, 16 August 2020 - 04:11 AM.

[Yoho]

So. I've finally got my Light engine, followed the strategy tips you gave me here and in other places.
I've built a weapon setup, hard limited at 300-meters with the biggest damage output I could imagine (full armor, still), here it is: CN9-A

And now, with this close-range build I started doing plays like this:



...which was impossible for me before, when I tried to be a slow ranged support.

I think, this is awesome! Thank you!

[redacted: typos]

Edited by Yoho, 17 August 2020 - 11:21 AM.

[letir]

Yoho, on 17 August 2020 - 11:11 AM, said:

So. I've finally got my Light engine, followed the strategy tips you gave me here and in other places.
I've built a weapon setup, hard limited at 300-meters with the biggest damage output I could imagine (full armor, still), here it is: CN9-A

Drop Beagle and single machinegun, add ammo and heatsinks. Your SRM Launchers is main weapon, but they only have 13 shots without skills. Why are you spending tonnage on useless things, when your main weapon system suffer?

Drop armor on the back for the frontal armor. Back armor should be 5-8 points only, more is simply unnecessary.

[Yiryi-Sa]

I do not run the A as much as the AL, but when I do, I run this build:

CN9-A

Centurions can be fairly XL friendly, as long you nail down torso twisting while brawling. The goal with this build is to use the AC/10 in the early stages of the match, and then roll with the group using the SRM2s (which are potent, since they have such low spread and high RoF).

[Yoho]

letir, on 17 August 2020 - 11:38 AM, said:

Drop Beagle and single machinegun, add ammo and heatsinks. Your SRM Launchers is main weapon, but they only have 13 shots without skills. Why are you spending tonnage on useless things, when your main weapon system suffer?

Drop armor on the back for the frontal armor. Back armor should be 5-8 points only, more is simply unnecessary.

Thanks. But...

The armor on the back saved me countless times. Both from a flanking light mech, and when I retreat at speed. You see, without Jump jets, I have to do risky maneuvers quite often.

Beagle helps me catch light mechs nearby. I am not exactly blind when they come with their ECM-s. I think so, at least. MG helps fighting fleas, too, and also adds to my salvo weight. 18xSRM+2xLaser+HMG is more DPS and alpha than 18xSRM+2xLaser+Ammo.

And as for SRM ammo, only once I ran out of it before the end of the battle (or before killed). And I have all the missile skills in the tree, so it is a bit more than 13 shots. Maybe 14, lol

[redacted: if only a little ammo re-shuffle... +1/2SRM, -1/2MG. And I could use another heatsink, sure, but I don't have another ton of weight.]

Edited by Yoho, 17 August 2020 - 12:26 PM.

[letir]

Yoho, on 17 August 2020 - 12:03 PM, said:

Beagle helps me catch light mechs nearby. I am not exactly blind when they come with their ECM-s. I think so, at least. MG helps fighting fleas, too, and also adds to my salvo weight. 18xSRM+2xLaser+HMG is more DPS and alpha than 18xSRM+2xLaser+Ammo.

They are not helping.

You have eyes for the ECM 'Mechs. Beagle is necessety for those who relying on locks, like streakboats. On the <300m you can see it hull as a whole, you don't need lock-on indication. At least you shouldn't need it with decent eyesight. It's wasted tonnage.

Pseudo-DPS from machinegun is illusion which demand extremly small ranges and constant facetanking, when entire nature of SRM-builds is "shoot-twist". Same with impulse lasers. If you gimping your ability to twist just for ONE machinegun, you doing it VERY wrong.

Back armor is unnecessary. You can twist torso to show sheild hands while retreating, instead of trying to do 180. This allow you to shoot and see situation, instead of blindly running away. It's all coming down to situational awarness, similar to the lights in the back.


You don't NEED all this crap. It's useless, and you shouldn't bring useless sh*t just as "my lucky charm" when alredy stringent on tonnage. There is always more ammo which you could need in the endgame, more heatsinks which will help with heat control, better engine for brawling.

[Tarl Cabot]

Yoho, everything is a learning experience. With that said, everyone's play style can and is different from others. I also used to run Beagle on many of my mechs, and not purely for my own benefit but also my teammates, ie cancelling out one ECM.

I would suggest dropping back armor to 9pts and moving the rest forward then run it that way. Drop the MG/Ammo and add another ton of SRM ammo at least. Strip some armor off arms and add back to legs. As for Beagle.. play with it then play without it by adding a DHS/ammo.

As for fighting lights.. try to aim for their legs.. remove a leg slows them DOWN, making it easier to finish them off without them getting away.

[Horseman]

Yoho, on 17 August 2020 - 12:03 PM, said:

The armor on the back saved me countless times. Both from a flanking light mech, and when I retreat at speed. You see, without Jump jets, I have to do risky maneuvers quite often.

You can retreat while showing the side of your mech to the enemy, that's what torso twisting is for. 12 points of back armor is 7 too many.

Quote

Beagle helps me catch light mechs nearby. I am not exactly blind when they come with their ECM-s. I think so, at least.

Beagle is mostly useless if you're not running lock-on missiles. The greatest counter to enemy ECM - and Stealth Armor, which the Beagle does exactly nothing to help against - are Mark One Eyeball and Mark One Eardrum (listen in and you'll hear enemy footsteps).

Quote

MG helps fighting fleas, too, and also adds to my salvo weight. 18xSRM+2xLaser+HMG is more DPS and alpha than 18xSRM+2xLaser+Ammo.

Not by a substantial margin. Certainly not one worth investing two tons into. Strip that arm, drop the BAP and you'll have tonnage to bump up your SRMs to MRM40+20 or 40+10 if you're using XL engine.

Quote

And as for SRM ammo, only once I ran out of it before the end of the battle (or before killed). And I have all the missile skills in the tree, so it is a bit more than 13 shots. Maybe 14, lol

Then you're either dying too much or not shooting enough. The norm for a Quickplay mech is around 20 shots.

Edited by Horseman, 18 August 2020 - 05:32 AM.

[Yoho]

Horseman, on 18 August 2020 - 05:26 AM, said:

Then you're either dying too much or not shooting enough. The norm for a Quickplay mech is around 20 shots.

Well.... maybe. Currently I try to bide my time and go only for sure hits, mostly flanking the firefights started by others to help secure a kill. Nothing like 'peek out and shoot just in case' on my own. Seems to work, more or less...

Horseman, on 18 August 2020 - 05:26 AM, said:

Beagle is mostly useless if you're not running lock-on missiles.

letir, on 17 August 2020 - 06:16 PM, said:

Beagle is necessety for those who relying on locks, like streakboats. On the <300m you can see it hull as a whole, you don't need lock-on indication. ... There is always more ammo which you could need in the endgame, more heatsinks which will help with heat control, better engine for brawling.

Okay. You're right. I dropped Beagle and I don't feel any change. Seems, it was really just my 'lucky charm'. This makes room for a heatsink and a bit more SRM ammo.

As for MG... I think, I should keep it, after all. LMG with half ammo instead of HMG is 1 ton total, LMG's range matches the range of p-meds, and in terms of damage it's somewhat 20% of pulse-meds' dps (0.7 / (12/(2.8+0.6)) = 0.198), which is quite substabtial IMO. It's a staredown value, true, and nothing much compared to SRM volley, but staredown is okay when you try to deal maximum damage to a Flea that's running away in zig-zags (and hitting it with SRM is a hard task for me). Another ton of weight for ammo.

[TripleEhBeef]

The engine "sweet spot" for most IS 50 ton mediums is STD 250, LFE 250, and XL 255. The XL 255 has the same weight as the XL 250 but gives you a tiny bit more speed.

These engines will get you moving at 81 KPH without any speed tweak nodes. You will be faster than the majority of heavies and assaults, but you are not fast enough to run across the map uncontested, so don't put too much distance between yourself and your teammates.

As for the CN9-A, there are two good brawler options for it; the 3 SRM 6 + Artemis build posted above, or an AC10 focused build, like below.

CN9-A AC10.

Exchanging the LFE250 for an XL255 will let you swap the SRM2s for SRM4s, giving you more burst damage at the cost of heat and survivability.

[Sniper09121986]

Yoho, on 15 August 2020 - 11:57 AM, said:

Sometimes you get light mech in the back that highlights everyone. And, as I understand, there's no way to see that you're being seen. Right?

OZHomerOZ, on 15 August 2020 - 04:50 PM, said:

The game makes a chirpy sound when target locks are made/broken (not sure forget which, I think broken), this sound can help you be aware of a spotter.

This is an old bug of radar deprivation module that makes a quiet beep and a screen flash whenever someone locks onto your mech. You need to have the active skill node for that module though. More on that here: https://mwomercs.com...-white-flashes/

[Aidan Crenshaw]

Sniper09121986, on 19 August 2020 - 03:12 AM, said:

This is an old bug of radar deprivation module that makes a quiet beep and a screen flash whenever someone locks onto your mech. You need to have the active skill node for that module though. More on that here: https://mwomercs.com...-white-flashes/

Almost correct. This is a side-effect of the radar-deprivation skill (formerly module) that makes the chirpy sound and litlle flasho of light when a target lock is broken. So you can tell when someone loses lock on you.

[Sniper09121986]

Aidan Crenshaw, on 19 August 2020 - 04:14 AM, said:

Almost correct. This is a side-effect of the radar-deprivation skill (formerly module) that makes the chirpy sound and litlle flasho of light when a target lock is broken. So you can tell when someone loses lock on you.

Woah! Thanks for the info because I always thought it was the other way around. Oh well

[Yoho]

I've been experimenting with a brawler build further, and I came to this:

CN9-A 3xSRM6+SNPPC

Removal of Artemis freed some tons while feeling like no difference at all. And now this is a total fire-and-forget (fire-and-twist, lol) so that I should not hold any lasers on the enemy any more. The PPC has a slightly bigger maximum range than SRM, but their optimal ranges match (288 for all). And I can disrupt ECMs now!

I know that targeting comp looks silly here. But I can't think of anything more useful to fill that ton. Ammo is 27 shots roughly, that's enough for me. Anyway, when I install the biggest XL engine, it will be more than 1 ton, yet to be filled.

Edited by Yoho, 29 August 2020 - 01:45 PM.

[Aidan Crenshaw]

Why not another heatsink instead? I think a heatcapped brawler build at roughly 5 alphas would benefit more from that then a TC. and you have the space. Also I hope you don't run that back armour?

CN9-A

Edited by Aidan Crenshaw, 29 August 2020 - 02:53 PM.

[Horseman]

* Snubs have a poor tonnage efficiency and heat efficiency. You could switch to 2xMPL and still have enough spare tonnage to get Artemis for your SRMs
* Dumping the external heat sinks you can up your armor to full Ferro and get the tonnage needed to up your engine to LFE 275 (+1 internal heat sink, so net you lose 1 HS but gain 5 KPH - which for a short-ranged brawler does help)
* You can strip a bit of the arm armor to fill up your leg armor and optionally take more SRM ammo as needed
* Too much back armor. 12 is excessive, if you're not carelessly charging into crossfire (which you shouldn't be doing in the first place) you won't really need more than 5 points.

[Yoho]

LFE 275 is okay as soon as I get enough C-bills Maybe even an XL one, not sure though. Takes too much space, and I do not have anything of a tonnage that would not use space as well. Maybe I will try big MRM volley...

The armor... You see, it happens quite often that a pack of lights attacks me from all the four sides at the same time. Both when I stray away unintentionally, and when I follow a small group. This back armor really helps in such cases. And I do not really get many shots in the face, because I try to attack with a group or from the cover.

Horseman, on 29 August 2020 - 02:52 PM, said:

* Snubs have a poor tonnage efficiency and heat efficiency. You could switch to 2xMPL and still have enough spare tonnage to get Artemis for your SRMs

But they disrupt ECMs! What are they good for, anyway? Isn't there any niche for their usage at all? Kinda... lack of hardpoints combined with excess of free weight..

[Horseman]

Yoho, on 30 August 2020 - 01:47 AM, said:

The armor... You see, it happens quite often that a pack of lights attacks me from all the four sides at the same time. Both when I stray away unintentionally, and when I follow a small group. This back armor really helps in such cases. And I do not really get many shots in the face, because I try to attack with a group or from the cover.

Placebo effect. If you're getting ganged upon by four lights, you're screwed no matter how much back armor you've got (plus competent light pilots will go for either damaged components or legs)

Quote

Isn't there any niche for their usage at all? Kinda... lack of hardpoints combined with excess of free weight..

And excess of space to mount them, which you don't have on this mech. Given the choice between 2xMPL and 1xSPPC, MPLs are a more optimal choice.