40 replies to this topic

[torsie]

No I got rid of the long missiles and TAG

Now its short missiles and 1 laser (and machine guns), I cant decide between Small laser and Small X Pulse laser .

Thank you! I thought the Radar Deprivation would be useful, since I dont have ECM now, to make me less visible when I am sneaking up on someone .

Yes my Flea is very fast, its making me dizzy and my head starts to hurt when I play it too much . I had to go back to Torsie1 at least for now.

Edited by torsie, 18 December 2023 - 12:30 PM.

[ScrapIron Prime]

torsie, on 18 December 2023 - 12:18 PM, said:

Now its short missiles and 1 laser (and machine guns), I cant decide between Small laser and Small X Pulse laser .

X pulse lasers are great for when you stick around and just blast the same guy without ducking, dodging, or torso twisting away. A great pilot can pull this off, but for the rest of us a small fast mech becomes more vulnerable when doing this.

If you've got short range missiles and one laser, then you'll want that laser to fire about as often as those short range missiles. For one ton, I'd recommend a plain old medium laser.

[Void Angel]

torsie, on 18 December 2023 - 12:18 PM, said:

No I got rid of the long missiles and TAG

Now its short missiles and 1 laser (and machine guns), I cant decide between Small laser and Small X Pulse laser .

Thank you! I thought the Radar Deprivation would be useful, since I dont have ECM now, to make me less visible when I am sneaking up on someone .

Yes my Flea is very fast, its making me dizzy and my head starts to hurt when I play it too much . I had to go back to Torsie1 at least for now.

Wait, that's right, it's not an ECM Flea... I got mixed up, I'm sorry. Ditch the Target Decay and keep every point of radar deprivation. Otherwise, same skills. Target Decay is for lock-on weapons, so you don't really need it for a direct-fire build - especially since it's hard-countered by Radar Deprivation.

You are absolutely right that Radar Deprivation is useful for Light 'mechs - link us your current build.

[torsie]

This is what I managed to put together. I ended up with weird 19,something/20 weight, so I removed a little bit of armour and put 1 machine gun on it, or I could put slightly larger laser on.

[ScrapIron Prime]

Not bad. One note for you though... all those instances of CASE are not doing you any good. They only stop ammo and gauss explosions from transferring to the next body part. Only the one in the torso with the SRM ammo will do anything, but even that won't help, as the explosion will gut that body location and take out the XL engine.

Instead, put a half ton of ammo in each leg with CASE. Like this:

https://mwo.nav-alph...0bf64a11_FLE-19

[torsie]

Haha nooooo, I didnt mean to do that, it was just a serious C.A.S.E. of my brain going on an adventure after a long day of crunching numbers, when I realized that it doesnt weight anything I just filled up all the holes to look pretty, I am expecting her return any moment now .

I will put some rockets into my legs, that sounds a bit dangerous to me .

What do you think about my laser-machinegun-armour problem? I took off some armour and put on one more machine gun, I tried some combinations and it still shows that I do the same damage, or even lower when I put in the medium laser, or is the armour better?

Edited by torsie, 19 December 2023 - 09:04 AM.

[ScrapIron Prime]

My preference would be one less machine gun (2 per arm) and up the small laser to a medium. Keep the armor as near to maximum as you can. You'll need it.

And check the weapon stats. You'll note that a machine gun does 1 damage per second with an optimal range of 130m, while a LIGHT machine gun does .85 damage per second with an optimal range of 360m. This allows you to hit from a lot farther away and pairs better with the range of the SRM's and a Medium Laser.

[Void Angel]

Well, for a build with SRM4, optimal is something Like This. There's no reason to armor two arms if you only have enough weapons for one, and the savings from shaving armor from the arm and extra head will give you the extra half-ton to support decent damage output from the ammo you're carrying. Thing is, there's a catch - the build fights itself. Your single SRM works differently than your machine guns and lasers: the former two are "hitscan" weapons; the game draws a line to the target and applies damage (with scatter in the case of MGs) - but the SRM is a deadfire projectile weapon, so with anything that's not standing still, you're not going to be able to shoot an enemy with both at once. This is a particular problem for the MGs, which don't have a cooldown window in which you can aim the SRM. In short, you're always losing damage when you fight on the move with these weapons.

There's two solutions, one better than the other. The Less Optimal Solution is to replace the SRM with a Streak. Streaks require a missile lock, which requires you to stare at the enemy (which you're doing anyway) and they don't miss unless something gets in the way. The downside you pay for this is that Streaks are heavier and have lower DPS per launcher. You'll have to downgrade to an SSRM2, and that'll drop your total dps. There is an upside, though; other Lights hate streaks, and it may be marginally easier for you to chase them off, until they figure out you only have one. =]

The Better Option is to ditch the missile hardpoint altogether. This is something you will often find yourself doing with Battlemech builds. I have three or four Thunderbolt Heavy 'mechs with a single missile hardpoint that I don't use on my builds right now. It's just not optimal; I need the tonnage to support cooling for my Heavy PPCs on one of them, for example. This build focuses on one thing: buzz-saw damage at up to 350m.

For this build, hang out near the team, and only poke when you have seen the enemy already shoot at a teammate who was poking. You're not a long-range trader, and it's ok not to put yourself up in the shooting gallery a lot of early matches turn into (with a bunch of ranged trading builds hiding at each other.) Be patient, and eventually people will start trying to get close to the enemy - that's where you shine. Whenever an enemy tries to attack one of your teammates from within that 350m range, or one of your teammates does the same, you want to be off to the side (where it's not easy for them to switch aim to you,) hammering on whatever component has its armor breached. There's a lot more to it than that, and eventually you'll be able to go harass enemies on your own, if you're careful. But this'll give you a good starting point to learn how things go.

On that note, two pieces of advice; one in-game, and one out. In-game, stick around and spectate after you've been killed. Watch what other people do and try to see why they've done them (right or wrong,) especially if they seem to be doing well. Out of game, use MechDB to post builds - you can import your 'mech builds to and from the MWO 'mechlab, and it lets people make quick adjustments to suggest a change to your build, rather than having to reproduce the build themselves - plus it won't clutter up your imgur account space. =]

[torsie]

Links no workie .

I am dead a lot, so I watch people play all the time! Thats why I want to try small mech, they look sooo much more fun to play than the big ones .

I am trying to use that website, but I have trouble finding what I am looking for and always end up with something different .

It seems like I have talent at creating stuff that doesnt do well . I wanted the long range missiles, they are fun, but I will need to mix them with something else, so I put them away for now . So I am trying the smaller ones now, they are kinda fun, I just need to figure out how to not die all the time .

I was reading about the missiles, its super complicated, there is like 50 of them and they all look the same to me . I looked at those ssrm, buuut, I read that you cant use them, when you are near someone who has ECM, that sounds to me as everyone and as a small mech, with small guns, I am near enemies most of the time, so they wont work? And they aim on their own, and fly where they want, isnt that bad? I tried them in those testing maps and they would just keep hiting different place every time, which is worse? Than hitting what I want?

Thank you again for helping me! Even though I am trying my best at doing the exact opposite .

So with everything I have learned, what would you say to THIS ? Or without being too much silly would this be good? How much armour can someone remove? Or I could keep the SRM6 instead of SRM4, use smaller laser for more armour or more machine guns . This game needs something like SRM5 or laser that is 1,25 tons!

Here some issues: (on the left side that is my damage right?)
8,2/10,5 with Light Machine Guns and Medium Laser.

8,8/10,6 with Machine Guns and Medium Laser.

8,9/10,6 with Machine Guns and Small Laser

8,8/11,1 with Machine Guns and Small Pulse Laser

8,8/11,3 with Machine Guns and Small X Pulse Laser

Doesnt that mean I am doing less damage? This game is tooo much complicated for me .

Edited by torsie, 19 December 2023 - 01:46 PM.

[Horseman]

torsie, on 19 December 2023 - 01:12 PM, said:

Here some issues: (on the left side that is my damage right?)
8,2/10,5 with Light Machine Guns and Medium Laser.
8,8/10,6 with Machine Guns and Medium Laser.
8,9/10,6 with Machine Guns and Small Laser
8,8/11,1 with Machine Guns and Small Pulse Laser
8,8/11,3 with Machine Guns and Small X Pulse Laser
Doesnt that mean I am doing less damage? This game is tooo much complicated for me .

Both are your damage. The right number is before you reach the heat cap, the left number is after you reach the heat cap and have to wait with firing your heat-generating weapons to avoid cooking your mech.

[Void Angel]

You never want to strip torso armor on a Light 'mech. Even a single point can make the difference between life and death when taking an autocannon round to the chest. So those builds you posted do have more firepower, but you will not survive to use it.

With missiles, there's really just two main kinds: lock-on, and dumb-fire. SRMs and MRMs are dumbfire missiles, while Streaks, ATMs, and LRMs are all lock-on. But don't get lost in the weeds with the individual weapon types: either you're locking onto the enemy, or you're not - the only thing that's different in how you use them is range. Not to say that the differences aren't important, but don't try to deal with all the complexity at once.

Similarly, you don't have to deal with absolutely every possibility when building a 'mech. Let me outline the general, step-by-step process I use.

Step One: Analyze the 'mech
Let's compare your FLE-19 with a FLE-17. Note that I've standardized both of them with the minimum required equipment so that MechDB will let me link. I also shaved down head armor to get to the nearest half-ton; so, let's see what we have: The Flea-19 has 6.5 tons left over for guns; the Flea-17 has 7, but it can also equip MASC - that brings the Flea-17 to 6 tons. Now we need to decide what the 'mech is generally good for: we're looking at quirks and hardpoints in light of our available tonnage. The quirks that matter for build considerations on the 19 are range, velocity, and cooldown. We have only one energy and one missile hardpoint, but eight freaking MG slots. That's a lot of hardpoints, but it's also a tiny 'mech. We'll see.

The Flea-17, on the other hand, has only basic durability quirks, and a bonus to overheat damage - this is because the chassis wasn't found to need quirks to be effective last time the devs did a balance pass for it. It's got seven energy hardpoints (also a lot for its size), but again it's a tiny 'mech. So looking at these 'mechs, the 19 has more range, and the 17 has a lot of lasers. This suggests possible builds! On our next phase:

Step Two: Throw Science at the Wall
At this point, we can sort of see what each chassis is capable of, so we start adding guns and selecting extra upgrades. We'll start with the Flea-19. The notable features of this chassis are its 8 ballistic hardpoints, extra range, and a big cooldown bonus. So let's double down; fill the ballistics with LMGs with a ton of ammo and see what we have; also plug in a good medium-class laser - eh, maybe an MPL. Oops, we're a half ton over, but we've got plenty of space left over - pop on Ferro-Fibrous Armor and viola! Basic Flea-19 Build.

Now for the Flea-17; this one is actually a bit trickier. We've only got energy hardpoints, and a lot of them, so right off, single heat sinks are not going to cut it. Swap out the singles and put back 4 (we need them to reach the 10-sink minimum.) Now we've got six tons to play with, and it's time to go lazer shopping. You could easily put in 6 small pulses and call it good, but you've been having suvivability issues with your Lights, so let's go a bit longer-range. Six MLs will work, but maybe we can squeeze more dps by mixing different lasers with similar ranges - MPL/ERSLs. A little less range, but shorter laser burns, meaning more damage where you want it, and less time spent staring at your target. Pick a variation of weapons that suits what you're trying to do, and...!

Step Three: Monitor and Adjust.
This last step just consists of seeing how well your 'mech performs, and what seems to cause you problems. If you're still getting killed too soon, for example, then you might swap out to 6ERMLs on that Flea-17. If you find that you're consistently running out of MG ammo on the Flea-19, downgrade to a normal Medium Laser and put the extra ton into ammo. Always consider what you could have done differently or better, and give a particular configuration a few matches to prove itself before you change.

And that's it. Those three steps will get you to a good build on any chassis you choose to pilot. The game has a ton of complexity, sure; that's part of what makes it fun. But you never have to deal with all of those moving parts at once. Break it down into "what's the next step," and it'll be much less overwhelming.

PS: Those numbers you're looking at in MechDB are sustained and maximum damage per second, respectively. So with the MGs and SXPL, you're doing the most dps - but you also have to get to knife-range. I'm recommending stuff with longer ranges because you'll be more likely to survive a mistake at a greater distance.

Edited by Void Angel, 19 December 2023 - 03:39 PM.

[ScrapIron Prime]

Void Angel, on 19 December 2023 - 03:39 PM, said:

You never want to strip torso armor on a Light 'mech.

[Ignatius Audene]

Not rly a valid game style. Adder and kitfox could work because of clan tonnage, but what do u expect too do? Turn an Zimbabwe flank? U can count down for the real light to dive u. And even on clan U prob limited too around 30 tubes. A lot of this will land in terrain and ams. Lrm need some tonnage for tubes and ammo. U could try of u like the ATM artic.

clan hunchback or summoner may suite your idea, even if not rly fast, the ability to jump and bring a narc on top of 40+tubes might be what u are rly up for.

[Ogir]

Void Angel, on 19 December 2023 - 03:39 PM, said:

You never want to strip torso armor on a Light 'mech.

The light Gauss in my Flea would like to have a word with you on that.

[ScrapIron Prime]

Ogir, on 20 December 2023 - 05:07 AM, said:

The light Gauss in my Flea would like to have a word with you on that.

Why would you even DO that? Minimum size engine, less than 2 tons of ammo... Even if you WANTED to do this with a light mech, there are other mechs that do it much better. Panther, Firestarter, Urbie, Raven...

[Void Angel]

Ogir, on 20 December 2023 - 05:07 AM, said:

The light Gauss in my Flea would like to have a word with you on that.

I'll visit it in the graveyard and have a chat.

[Ogir]

ScrapIron Prime, on 20 December 2023 - 09:41 AM, said:

Why would you even DO that? Minimum size engine, less than 2 tons of ammo... Even if you WANTED to do this with a light mech, there are other mechs that do it much better. Panther, Firestarter, Urbie, Raven...

Because I can. I rather enjoy playing ridiculous builds sometimes. It's like the 4 flamer flea.

[Ignatius Audene]

But we are in the new player help section of the forum. Not look how I troll the hardest. Stop giving out rly bad advice to players that can't distinguish rubbish troll build and actually viable.

[Horseman]

Ogir, on 20 December 2023 - 04:54 PM, said:

Because I can. I rather enjoy playing ridiculous builds sometimes. It's like the 4 flamer flea.

There are ways to create unorthodox but effective builds. I absolutely adore my UAC20 Kit Fox, for one. But that doesn't mean you should advocate for newbie players to waste their limited resources on shooting themselves in the foot.

[torsie]

Look look look we did something and thisthing !

And applause please for ->THIS<- is the culprit !

Thank you everyone so much for helping !!! You are the best!

I might change how much ammo I have and maybe put on one more machine gun, but so far its awesome even if I dont use it all up!

Now I only need to come up with a name.

Edited by torsie, 22 December 2023 - 03:58 AM.