5 replies to this topic

[Ttly]

Because this game sucks at explaining things.
Yes, there's MechDB (https://mwo.nav-alpha.com/wiki) which explains a lot of this game's mechanics, but just dumping raw numbers into someone's mouth isn't good enough apparently so here it is I guess.

Skills:

Spoiler

Let's start with mech skills, you can only have 91 nodes of them active per mech, so let's break down which one's worthwhile and which one isn't.
Numbers in bracket next to skill name indicates amount of nodes in a skill.

Something to note:
The skill tree for Clan mechs has slightly different numbers from the Inner Sphere ones, the skill numbers also varies from mech tonnage, AND chassis (a 20ton Inner Sphere light has 26% maximum armor bonus from skill while a 35ton Inner Sphere light only gets 23% maximum for example), I won't be breaking down every single difference but it's something to keep in mind.


Firepower:

Cooldown (16):
Generally the lowest priority unless you use autocannons, why? Because most other weapons generate too much heat that shooting faster just overheats you quicker.
Also this skill usually only lets you shoot your weapons 0.1-0.6s earlier than otherwise.
Does not affect automatic weapons such as machine guns or RACs.

Range (15):
Usually the highest priority, but your playstyle/weapon selection might not need it, especially on clan mechs with their longer range lasers. Its value also varies depending on what map you are on, but having the versatility of more weapon range is generally always a good thing.
Can be substituted by positioning once you are more familiar with this game's maps.

Heat Gen (14):
Reduces weapon heat when fired, you should take this AFTER you take Cool Run as it is generally the superior heat management skill.
Reducing an ER medium laser's heat by 0.2 to 0.4 might not sound like much but when you're firing 6 medium lasers, that -0.2 to -0.4 per laser translates to 1.2 or 2.4 less heat which is actually a lot when the average heat capacity of a mech is around 50-55.
It's also less heat that you'd have to wait around to dissipate.

Velocity (5):
Makes your projectiles faster, a must have for autocannons, missiles, maybe not PPCs.
This makes aiming easier by reducing the amount of lead your shots need/reduces the target's reaction time, this is valuable against fast mediums and light mechs, and also for sniping builds.
Not really that valuable if you prefer to fight at closer range where the extra velocity isn't giving you extra hits.
Does not affect lasers or machine guns as they are hitscan weapons that hits their intended target immediately.

Energy Skills:
This is a subsection of the firepower skill category that affects energy weapons.
This is indicated by the nodes being coloured in YELLOW.

Laser Duration (4):
Makes your laser fires for a shorter time, this does NOT reduce the laser damage, it compresses all of that damage into that shorter time instead.
A must have if you heavily use lasers as this means you only have to aim at your target for a shorter time to inflict the same amount of damage.
Also shortens laser cooldown as laser weapons starts cooldown AFTER they do their full burn.

Flamer Ventilation (2):
Faster flamer ramp down, but what does that mean?
Well the flamer works in that it can fire for FIVE (5) seconds before its ramp up meter fills up and firing it any further after that period causes it to produce significantly more heat, once you stop firing for FIVE (5) seconds this meter will start ramping down which would take FIVE (5) seconds before it fully ramps down.
This skill shortens that ramp down period by -7.5% per node or translated into seconds: 0.0375 for a total of 0.75 seconds with both nodes so now your flamer ramp down only takes 4.25 seconds instead of 5 seconds.
Yes, it is a terrible skill even for flamer users (all 5 of them).

Ballistic Skills:
This is a subsection of the firepower skill category that affects ballistic weapons.
This is indicated by the nodes being coloured in PURPLE.

Magazine Capacity (2):
+8% ammo per node, per ton of ammo for a total of +16%.
Is this worth it? Hard to say, generally this increases the potential damage of your ammo by around 15-20 per node, unless you can live long enough to use that extra ammo I wouldn't say it is.

LBX Spread (2):
2 nodes for -10% LBX spread, each LBX projectile does 1 damage with higher critical damage than their normal autocannon counterpart, so theoretically this skill allows your LBX projectile to shred structures even better if you can aim them at your target's component.
Saying that it's kind of hard to recommend this skill as projectile scatter randomness is exactly that, random, and while reducing it is always a good thing, it's hard to say whether -10% is worth 2 skill nodes.
Take it if you use LBX I guess.

Gauss Charge (2):
Lets you hold your gauss charge longer by 0.75s/node.
This is a lot of extra charge hold time, but unless you really use it by charging before you turn every corner in this game, it's kind of wasted.

Enhanced UAC/RAC (2):
Personally I'd say this isn't worth it as by the time your UAC/RAC unjams/ramp downs, it's likely you've lost your opportunity to shoot at the thing you were shooting at and this skill only lets you unjam about 1 second earlier than you would've otherwise.
For more details on UAC/RAC jams, read this page:
https://mwo.nav-alph.../wiki/equipment

Missile Skills:
This is a subsection of the firepower skill category that affects missile weapons.
This is indicated by the nodes being coloured in TEAL.

Missile Rack (2):
+9 to 10% ammo per node, per ton of ammo for a total of +18-20%. This number isn't exact because the game does some weird rounding.
Unlike the ballistic version of this skill, this is generally always worth it, especially on mechs that heavily uses missiles due to how quick missile builds can run out of ammo and the range at which they are usually used at.
Also this skill increases the amount of potential damage per ton by 18-30 per node.

Missile Spread (2):
At only -2.5% spread per node I would say this skill isn't worth it, not unless you use SRMs heavily.
This skill isn't going to reduce your SRM spread so that it all hits the same limb consistently at longer ranges.

High Explosive (2):
First, you need to know how critical hits works in this game. So read this page:
https://mwo.nav-alph...i/critical-hits
You didn't? Well here's the summary
Is +7.5% crit damage per skill node worth it?
Yes, this increases your crit damage multiplier, this means with both nodes your missiles would be doing +32% damage on a crit instead of +15% that it would've otherwise done without it.


Survival:

Skeletal Density (10):
Always max this out.
Lower priority than armor due to structure being susceptible to critical hits despite the skill having higher numbers.

Armor Hardening (10):
Always max this out first. Armor can't be critted, unlike structure.
Also due to the nature of armor being adjustable in the mechlab, this skill generally translates to +1 armor for every 4-6 armor points you allocate to a component.

Reinforced Chassis (8):
Again, you need to know how critical hits work:
https://mwo.nav-alph...i/critical-hits
So is this skill worth it? Surprisingly yes but less so than the other survival skills, this skill effectively increases the value of your structure as critical hits is what made it considered inferior to armor in general.
This skill generally reduces the crit chance by 1.7% per node as the chance to be hit by a crit is 42% per hit.

Overheat Damage (5):
Unless you're bad at heat management, run a hot build and play with override on, you shouldn't really need this.
One thing to note about overheat damage is that it inflicts a flat amount of structure damage that CAN inflict critical damage, which means that light mechs (which generally has lower structure) can instantly lose a component when they overheat with override enabled while assaults can survive overheating for a bit longer (barring overheat damage blowing up your ammo storage and triggering ammo explosion that is).

AMS Overload (2):
An increase of AMS damage by 21% per node, but what does that even mean?
It means that your AMS might shoot +1-2 more LRMs off a salvo.
Normally an AMS can be expected to shoot down a 2-5 LRMs from a barrage, adding 1-2 isn't really that big of a deal, though the extra damage does mean that it might be able to destroy more SRMs and MRMs than it would otherwise have.
Take them if you want LRM users to suffer more than they already do I guess, but it's generally a waste of nodes since maybe your teammates should've hugged cover instead of prancing about in the open, vulnerable to LRMs, possibly being shot at by other deadlier weapons too while at it.

Kinetic Burst (7):
Increased acceleration, is it useful? I wouldn't say it is, at least compared to deceleration.
This is mainly taken to unlock Speed Tweak.
-Speed Tweak (5):
Increases your top speed, most valuable on lights and other fast mechs as they gain the most out of it.

Hard Brake (7):
Increased deceleration. So what makes it good? It means when you are moving at maximum speed you can STOP moving faster AND start moving in reverse earlier.
This is VERY useful while peeking around corners. Simple as.
Generally assaults and various chassis with low deceleration stat gains the most out of this skill as it might be the difference from reversing a second earlier than otherwise while faster more agile mechs only gain like half a second earlier reverse or something.

Anchor Turn (5):
This affects how fast/tight you turn in a circle, this is usually only relevant for brawling light mechs, the types that uses small lasers/machine guns as they are the ones that fight at these extremely close ranges where these advantages actually matters.
If you fight at longer ranges you don't really need this unless you're a fast medium/light that wants to try to dodge around shots.

Torso Speed (6):
This affects how fast your torso moves around, or as another way to put it "how high your + shaped crosshair sensitivity is" this is rather niche for most mechs, though some like the Centurion might want this as it allows them to rotate and use their left side as a shield better.
Like deceleration rate, slower torso speed mechs gains the most out of this as it might let them perform a 90 degree twist 0.5 second faster than they would've.

Torso Yaw (5):
This affects how far your vehicle's torso can rotate side-to-side, putting points into these might even allow you to almost face backwards.
That being said, this is a very double edged choice as you might accidentally overtwist and expose your back armor to the FRONT of your leg direction.

Torso Pitch (5):
Generally useless as most maps doesn't feature enough verticality for this to matter and most mechs doesn't have good pitch angle in the first place to gain much from this skill.
If you really need to shoot at mechs with jump jets just unlock your arms.

Jump Jets:

Lift Speed (5):
This affects how FAST you fly upwards, this does not increase your jump height, that might sound disappointing but if you're going to use jump jets then this is the best skill for it. Why? Because if you're jumping, you want to gain that verticality NOW in most cases, this helps you with that, it might also help you in dodging shots as it adds another dimension to your movement.

Vent Calibration (5):
This affects how LONG you can hold the jump jet button, this does increases your jump height, but it's generally considered inferior to lift speed. Why? Because flying around too high/longer usually makes you easy target, this is caused by various factors such as TOTAL LACK OF COVER WHILE BEING IN THE SKY among other things, take as much nodes as you need to get to a map position you want to be.

Heat Shielding (5):
This reduces the amount of heat generated while using jump jets.
It's a very meh skill, it's supposed to be for poptart mechs, but why take this when you need to wait for your jump jets to recharge and weapon to cooldown right?

Shock Absorbance (5):
Technically not a jump jet skill as any mech can take it.
To understand the value of this skill you need to understand how fall damage works:
https://mwo.nav-alph...nt-and-controls
This skill does NOT increase the fall velocity treshold before your mech takes damage at all but unless you use jump jets heavily you shouldn't need this as most maps aren't vertical enough to the point that you're going to lose legs all the time jumping off cliffs.
And even if you are a jump jet mech, you could've saved up some thrust to cushion your impact.

Operations:

Quick Ignition (5):
A meme skill.
First, you need to know that powering down or back up takes 3 seconds each time for a total of 6 seconds.
This skill reduces that 3 seconds by 0.36 seconds per node up to 1.8 seconds reduction, resulting in 1.2 seconds of powering up/powering down sequence.
That's it. That's all it does.
You can use it if you overheat in the middle of the battle because you forgot to turn on override as while your mech is cooling down and powered off (due to being above 100% heat) you can STILL toggle override on while powered down and your mech would power back up within 1.2 seconds while STILL being above 100% heat with this.

Improved Gyros (4):
Reduced screen shake on being hit means more than it seems, this allows you to aim an effective counter fire against autocannon/missile users all the while being blasted in the face by them.
Generally you can live withonly 2 nodes but in some cases such as on an assault you might want 3.
You can pretty much ignore it on a light/fast medium mechs as their hit and run playstyle and low durability means that they shouldn't be hit in the first place and should run away if they are.

Speed Retention (3):
First you need to understand what happens when you are legged.
When you are legged, your mech will slow down to a 15kph speed for 3 seconds to represent the mech's gyro readjusting its balance due to the loss of one leg.
THEN your mech would be limited to 50% top speed OR 50km/h speed.
This skill only works on the former case and it works multiplicatively, which means that while legged with all 3 nodes in this skill you can retain 65% of your top speed instead of 50% and NOT 80% of your top speed.
That sounds nice and all but the truth is, most people do NOT aim for the leg that much which makes this skill mostly worthless in practice.

Cool Run (5):
Always take this skill.
At least if you run enough weapons with heat to warrant it.
Most mech builds have a dissipation rate at around 2.5/s to 3/s, +10% dissipation rate translates to +0.25 to +0.3/s, this is as much as an ENTIRE additional 1 ton of double heat sink for zero tonnage or slot usage and this skill effectiveness increases the more heat sinks are equipped.

Heat Containment (5):
Doesn't exactly work as advertised.
https://mwo.nav-alpha.com/wiki/heat
The short version is, a mech at minimum gains about +1 and NOT +1.5 heat capacity per node with this skill which is rather disappointing.
Theoretically with all 5 nodes you should be able to keep up a sustained fire without overheating for longer but it's hard to say whether this skill is worth it as all that extra heat contained is still heat that needs to be cooled off, and the nodes put into this skill might be better placed in the heat gen skill at the firepower section.

Hill Climb (3):
It's really hard to say whether this skill is worth it, but if you want to zoom around climbing hills then I guess it is?

Sensors:

Target Info Gathering (5):
When you lock on (default keybind R) to an enemy you'll get their health data (also called paper doll) faster. This duration is affected by range, and you'll get it quick enough for it to matter even without this skill at shorter ranges which means this skill only matters at longer ranges. Mostly taken only for Seismic Sensor.
-Seismic Sensor (2):
When you stop moving, enemy ground movement (they don't show up if they're standing still/flying around with jump jets) will show up on your map as obnoxious red blips, this works through cover.
It can be hard to tell the amount of blips if the enemy is bunched up together.
100m range per node for 200m range maximum might sound too short, but you'd also need to know that a map grid is generally 500m square, which means that if you stand in the middle of a square you can generally detect any mech moving in it.
This skill is not gonna help you against an ambush by a light/fast medium as by the time you detect them with this they would generally be already attacking you and at that point you don't really need this skill to tell you they are there.
Oh also the red blips only shows up for you, so if you want to tell your teammates about enemies around the corner you should yell at them on voice chat because they're not gonna read text chat.

Sensor Range (5):
This increases the range at which when you spot an enemy mech where they'll show up on the minimap and as a red icon, without it you can still visually see an enemy mech, they just won't show up as a red icon/on the map. This skill somewhat counters ECM by increasing the sensor range, but this is hardly a factor.
-Radar Deprivation (5):
Reduces the time you appear as a red icon on the map/screen when you stop being spotted by a flat percentage.
When you are spotted you generally stay visible as an icon for about 2 seconds, this reduces that time by 16% per node up to 80% or by 0.3 seconds per node up to 0.4 seconds left, this time is affected by Target Decay.
This skill is generally considered a crutch skill meant to make newer players' lives easier, yet at the same time also a waste of a skill node.
Why? How could something as simple as how long you appear on the map be so good yet a waste at the same time?
Because newer players tend to have bad positioning, they get spotted more, they get focused more, they get hit by LRMs, this skill remedies some of these issues by immediately hiding them once they get back into cover.
For better players, the value of this skill comes mainly in denying the enemy the chance to lock-on and determine their health status and weapon loadout which can be rather negligible if they have teammates that called out their mech, loadout, and position already, better players also have better knowledge of the map and where enemies are generally positionned and as such they can also better determine (though not exact) the position of their enemies by simply guessing. Better players also tend to hug cover more which denies LRMs from hitting them even if they do manage to get a lock-on.
As such, this skill is best described as a really mixed bag though if you're a new player you should probably just take it.
-Enhanced ECM (2):
You need both nodes to make ECM worthwhile, that's all you need to know about this skill.
The stealth armor cooldown bonus is nice but that's not what you take this skill for primarily.

Target Decay (5):
Affects how long an enemy blip stays AFTER you lock-on (default keybind R) to them and lose sight of them.
This is only really used by LRM users, at +0.7s per node, it does its job.

Target Retention (2):
Allows an enemy to STAY LOCKED ON even if they move behind you as long as you have possible line of sight, this means that if you are surrounded by objects that blocks line of sight and the enemy moves behind them, they'll be in the target decay state and will disappear as a map icon even if they are still in target retention range.

Advanced Zoom (1):
Allows you to use the picture-in-picture 4x zoom. Default keybind V.
You don't really need this for shorter range builds but it's always nice to have for spotting stuff if nothing else.

Auxiliary:

Capture Assist (4):
+5% cap speed per node, how much does this help?
Well depends on the gamemode.
An Assault gamemode base takes about 3 minutes to cap without this, +20% cap speed would reduce that to 2 minutes 30 seconds.
An Conquest gamemode capture point can have -30 and +30 seconds on its capture strength and with this you'd be ticking that timer down by 1.2/second at full node which lets you decap a fully capped point within 25 seconds.
Yeah you know what, this skill isn't that worth it. Not to mention that most gamemodes and players play this game to shoot at each other, not to stand on capture points.


Enhanced NARC (2):
A NARC stays on an enemy for 24 seconds by default.
That means the +15% duration per node increases that duration by +3.6s, up to 7.2s with both nodes for a total of 31s of NARC duration.
If you use NARC then take it.

Consumables (16):
-Consumable Slot (4): More consumables to carry around, keep in mind that each consumable costs you 40k C-Bills which can be rather wasteful if you actually use them/waste them.
Also this skill only affects your slot amount, it doesn't increase the limit of a certain consumable, you can still only bring 1 UAV even with 2 slots for example.
=UAV:
-UAV Duration (1):
Rather meh, the UAV stays on air for 1 minute on its own, this extends that duration by 10 seconds, a whole 16% to 70 seconds, that is assuming the UAV did not get shot down for its entire duration.
-UAV Range (2):
The UAV has 240m range by default, at +20% range per node that means +48m for a total of +96m.
Very useful, this lets you pop an UAV to spot way beyond seismic sensor range from where you deployed it.
-Extra UAV (1)
Allows you carry additional UAV, try to not press the UAV deploy button too quickly as there is no cooldown between each deployment and you might deploy all your UAVs in one spot.
=Strategic Strike:
-Adv. Salvos (2):
No, I don't know what the Adv. stands for in this case.
This increases the duration/strike length of your artillery/air strike, each explosion generally can do 5/10 damage that can hit all 7-11 limbs of an enemy mech for a total of 50ish damage.
That sounds like a lot but the hitboxes are very janky and as such, it is rather of dubious value on top of how easy it is to avoid the affected area with the obvious red smoke even if it works as area denial.
Oh also the strategic strike lands about 8 seconds after deployed on the targeted area.
-Enhanced Spotting (1):
Concentrates the explosions into a smaller area, potentially doing more damage but denying less area. For air strikes this means a shorter bombing run line which can hamper its use for striking enemies behind cover.
-Expanded Reserves (1):
Allows you to carry two strategic strikes, keep in mind that you can't deploy two of the same strategic strike simultaneously on the same spot as they have a cooldown which is shared for your ENTIRE team.
=Coolshot
-Enhanced Coolshot (2):
The coolshot increases your dissipation rate by -2/s for 7s, this increases that cooling by 0.3/s per node up to an additional 0.6/s. This is almost double the cooling rate of most mechs.
-Coolshot Cooldown (1):
Reduces the coolshot's cooldown from 40s to 30s, simple as that. You still get to decide when you want to use it and having it available sooner the better. Make sure to take coolant reserves first though.
-Coolant Reserves:
Lets you carry an additional coolshot, if your mech were to carry three cool shots the blue bar on the HUD would still only show two segments if you were wondering.

Mechlab:
[spoiler]
The mechlab, your garage, hangar, whatever your term of choice for the place where you work on your vehicles.

This is where you determine your weapon loadout, durability, heat management, and speed of your mech by allocating items to mount into your mech's limbs, also called component, the limbs that is.

First, you need to familiarize yourself with this image:

This is the compact information card of your mech, get used to reading this.
You can also click the icon on the top left of this information card to expand it and get the full infocard.

-Tonnage: How many tons your mech is using/Its tonnage limit
-Slots: How many slots your mech is using/Its slot limit (slot limit is always 78 regardless of mech)
-Armor:How many points of armor your mech has/Its armor limit (this limit varies between chassis tonnage limit)
-Heat Management: An arbitrary score, it's not really that useful but generally you'd want 1.3 score of it for what is considered easier heat management.
-Heat Sink Type/Engine Heat Sink: Amount of heat sinks mounted and the amount of engine heatsinks.
-Firepower: The amount of damage your mech can do in one alpha strike (firing all its weapons) or within 5 seconds for weapons such as the machine gun/RACs.
-Speed: Your mech's maximum speed in forward/reverse
-Jump Distance: How high your mech can jump, generally you'll want around 50 height to reach positions you couldn't have otherwise, anything less is just mobility aid to climb over short obstacles.
-Engine: Type of engine and its rating mounted, this will be explained later.
-Sensor Range: The range at which your mech can spot an enemy and have it appear as a red icon.

Important Note:
This information card is also available on the shop and can be used to access the preview mechlab AND test drive said mech into the Testing Ground without purchasing it.
Make full use of this by test driving every single mech with your planned build before you purchase them to prevent buyer's remorse.

The full infocard allows you to determine a mech's hardpoint count and general locations of said hardpoints, it also gives information regarding what sort of quirks a mech possesses.

Example of hardpoints and quirks on the full info card (AWS-8V as example)

=Quirks=
What are these?
Quirks are what gives a mech its gameplay identity along with other traits such as its shape (hitbox geometry, tanking profile, hardpoint count, hardpoint placement, equipment compatibility (whether it can mount ECM, jump jets, etc.), and agility (covered in the "graphs" section below.

These quirks are either imaginary buffs meant to make a mech more viable than otherwise, or exists as a way to represent a mech's compatibility with certain equipment types.
As seen on the above info card, the Awesome-8V possessses an MRM Velocity +180%, Heat -10%, and several survival quirks increasing its base armor.

These quirks, particularly the MRM Velocity +180% in this Awesome's case is what makes it unique compared to other mechs.
Without these quirks, some mechs would otherwise be considered as simply inferior to another even more than they might already be or just play in a near identical way and that would be boring.

Some mechs on the other hand, might have very little to no quirks.
Examples of these exists within the Marauder IIC, and the Crusader CRD-6T
These mechs on the other hand, rely on the amount of their hardpoints to make themselves distinct.


The information card also allows you to determine the agility of a mech.
This can be checked by scrolling down into the section called "graphs"

Example of the graph section on the full info card (AWS-8V as example)
The "agility" of a mech is determined here as:
How quickly it can change directions, turn, move its body.
This does NOT mean high top speed, a mech can move at 100kph speed and be unagile which would lead to the mech controls to feel "slippery"
This is determined by a combination of the following stats:

Acceleration: How quick it can get to its top speed.
Deceleration: How quick it can STOP moving, this is arguably the most important stat as it allows you to start reversing earlier than otherwise.
Turn Rate: How tight of a turn it can make while moving, or how quick it can spin around while standing still.
Torso Turn Rate: This determines how responsive your + shaped crosshair moves around, you can play with arm lock turned off to "detach" your mouse sensitivity from this, which can make torso twisting significantly easier.

For more details you should read this page: https://mwo.nav-alph...nt-and-controls
The summary is that basically the numbers shown aren't "exact" as for example, you accelerate/decelerate faster from 0-66% than you would at 66-100% speed, and you have smaller turning radius the slower you move.

For an example of mechs that are exceptionally agile, you can test drive mechs such as:
Dragon, Linebacker, Quickdraw, Viper, Zeus, most light mechs, any mechs with MASC while their MASC is on.

For an example of mechs that are exceptionally unagile, you can test drive mechs such as:
Annihilator, Vapor Eagle, Night Gyr, Orion, most assault mechs in general.

Alright, now you've figured out how to read a mech's infocard, let's get to the actual MechLab.

Example of a default Atlas (AS7-D) configuration from the store.

When you first get your hands on a mech, it comes in a default (also called stock) configuration, these are usually based off the "canon Battletech configuration" of said mech variation, most of these configurations are simply "bad" when it comes to this game.
Why? Because when you give players the choice to mix and match whatever weapon, engine rating, and allocate armour however they wish, you can do significantly better than most of these stock configurations, simple as that.

Let's ignore 90% of the screen and focus on:
-The Info Card (bottom right of the screen)-
For now.
According to the info card, you can see that the mech is using
-100/100 of its tonnage limit
-65 out of 78 slots
-608 armor points allocated out of its 614 armor points limit
-1.47 heat management score
-10 Standard Heat Sinks, and 10 unremovable engine heatsinks (this is the numbers in bracket)
-72.9 firepower
-48.6 forward speed/32.4 reverse speed
-No Jump Distance
-Using an Standard 300 Engine
-800 Sensor Range

The most important takeaway here are the slots, 65 out of 78? That's 13 slots entirely unused!
But how do we use these slots without free tonnage as we've reached the tonnage limit?
Well first we can look at the upgrades box.



Upgrades:

-Armor:

=Armor Allocation:
Within the mechlab's component sheets (the squares where you can see what you have mounted on what component) you can see these big yellow numbers, this is the amount of armor allocated to that component which you can adjust. Adding more armor also increases the tonnage of your mech, so you might not always be able to fully armor up each component without hitting the weight limit.
Under the big yellow text you'll also see a text that says "STRUCTURE" followed by a number.
This is the amount of structure that component has.

-Structure:
Structure are the "internals" of your mech, it's what your armor protects, it's the "hit points" of that limb/component, any attacks that hits the structure has the potential to inflict CRITICAL HITS.
For more information on critical hits, read this page:
https://mwo.nav-alph...i/critical-hits
This means that a structure is generally squishier than these number indicates, a component with 60 structure is just not as tanky as 60 armor.

-Front Armor vs Rear Armor:
Generally a mech's "front armor" covers between 220 degrees to an entire 250 degrees on some mechs. This means that to hit someone on the "rear" reliably you'd have to be straight behind them, and even if you DO hit someone on the rear, chances are they might immediately start torso twisting and turning around and you'd lose your opportunity to hit said rear, the same goes for you if you're on the receiving end of a rear attack, simply twist your torso around and maybe turn to deny the attacker from hitting your rear armor.
As such, the rear armor is generally neglected in favour of the front armor. I personally allocate 4-6 armor into the rear just so it can have a free +1 from a maxed out armor skill but some players only allocate 1-3 points.

Now, how should you generally allocate your armour across your components?

INFORMATION ON MECH HITBOXES CAN BE FOUND AT:
https://mwomercs.com...localization-2/

-Cockpit: This is generally near impossible to hit on a moving mech due to how small it is. Although on some mech chassis, especially slower mechs like assaults you might want to allocate a decent amount of points into this component as losing it means you're out of the match. You might also want to put points into this depending on your mech's hitboxes.
Curiously the cockpit of every mech shares the same amount of potential durability, 18 maximum armor and 15 structure, so the cockpit of an light mech can be just as durable as the cockpit of an assault mech.

-Center Torso (CT):
Losing this part of your mech means destruction, simple as that, this means you generally want to maximize armor allocated to this component.

-Side Torso (RT/LT, right torso/left torso):
Losing this part of your mech can be debilitating, as it will also destroy the respective side's arm component. (e.g losing left torso means your left arm also gets destroyed even if it's undamaged) but at least you won't immediately be fully taken out with a loss of a side torso. Try to maximize the armor on these component regardless, generally they can't be as armored as the center torso however which is why you need to torso twist to spread the damage between both sides and the CT.

-Legs (RL/LL, right leg/left leg)
Surprisingly doesn't get targeted often enough.
But why is this the case? Well the reason is as simple as "most people don't aim low enough to hit the legs" and also due to legs being the lowest part of a mech, they are naturally protected by the enviromental cover of a map the most.
Oh and that these components can be as armored as a side torso if slightly less.
The legs are also what gets damaged from fall damage if you plan to heavily use jump jets, so armor them up even more in that case.

-Arms (RA/LA, right arm/left arm)
Depending on your mech's hitbox and hardpoints, these can be a rather mixed bag.
Why? Because some mechs simply does not get shot in the arms that much (Marauder, Warhawk, Locust, King Crab, Orion for example) while on some mechs the arms can fully shield your mech's torso when attacked from the side (Centurion, Shadow Hawk, Atlas, Rifleman for example) as such you have to decide on a per mech basis on how much you should allocate armor to the arms.

=TORSO TWISTING=
Also known as:
How to effectively spread damage across ALL of your limbs instead of taking all of your damage on the CT and instantly get taken out of matches.
Just wiggle your mouse side-to-side/show the side you WANT to be damaged to your enemy.
That's it, it's as simple as that.
To effectively perform this, make sure to do it BETWEEN your attacks, as your weapon reload/recharges/cool themselves, a Centurion is the best mech to train in this maneuver as its left arm possesses a hitbox that covers the entirety of the left torso and it has enough torso speed to effectively rotate itself between shots.
If you find difficulty in doing this, try playing with arm lock disabled as this will detach your mouse sensitivity from your torso speed which might reduce the "rigid" feel of your mech as you perform torso twists.


=Armor Type:
This is your armor type, the type installed on your mech does NOT increase your mech's durability, it instead determines how much your armor weighs, this upgrade is usually the LOWEST priority due to how much slots they use and how little weight it saves. At least it's the cheapest upgrade type.

>Standard: 32 points of armor per ton, zero slots used. Most assaults generally use this so they can mount slot inefficient weapons.

>Light Ferro-Fibrous: 33 points of armor per ton, seven (7) slots used. Most mechs generally use this because they have more slots than tonnage to mount more stuff. 33 points of armor per ton might sound like a negligible improvement over standard armor, but hey, what else are you going to use those slots on?
Maximum weight saving on a full armor 100 ton assault:1 tonnage

>Ferro-Fibrous: 35 points of armor per ton, fourteen (14) slots used. Most mechs generally should NOT use this armor type as 14 slots is simply too much. As such, it mostly only sees usage on light mechs and some mediums.
Maximum weight saving on a full armor 100 ton assault: 2 tonnages

>Clan Ferro-Fibrous: 38 points of armor per ton, seven (7) slots used.
Only available to clan mechs, this combined with generally less slots used by clan weapons is what makes them good, though some clan assaults might not want to take this regardless so they can mount bigger weapons.
It sounds powerful until you realize that clan mechs usually have less survival quirks and needs
to allocate all the armor they can.
Maximum weight saving on a full armor 100 ton assault: 3 tonnages

>Stealth: Same weight as standard armor, twelve (12) slots used. Only available to Inner Sphere mechs with ECM and needs ECM to be mounted to be usable which means that it actually occupies 14 slots and +1 tonnage if you want it to function. It also allocates two locked slots into all of your components other than the cockpit and the center torso which can really limit what weapons you can use with it.
While mounted you can press a button to toggle stealth mode (default keybind M), you can press the same bind again to toggle it off and trigger the cooldown (10 seconds).
While in stealth mode a mech gain the following benefits:
-It won't glow bright white on thermal vision.
-It won't show up as a red icon on the enemy's vision.

There are several drawbacks to this stealth mode:
-Its heat dissipation is reduced by more than half, this means that a stealth mode mech generally only has 1-1.5/s dissipation while in this mode.
-It doesn't really turn invisible as it can still be shot at by any weapons and can be seen visually.
-It does not get shared map information from its teammates, that means if its teammate spots an enemy, it won't have that enemy show up on its map.
-It can't spot enemies for its teammates or itself. Like the previous drawback, unless it communicates where or what the enemies are, it won't light up its teammates' battlemap with enemy icons that it spotted.

=Heat Sink Type:
This determines the type of heat sink the a mech has, this is usually the most expensive upgrade type so try to not switch back and forth with these.
This upgrade affects ALL of your heat sinks, including engine heatsinks.
A mech needs a minimum of TEN (10) heatsinks to be allowed to be played, these first ten heatsinks are often called "internal heat sinks" and contrary to the name, doesn't necessarily mean engine mounted heatsinks, it just means "the first ten heat sinks on a mech"
What are engine heatsinks you ask? We'll get to that on the engine section later.

For more details regarding heat management you can read this page:
https://mwo.nav-alpha.com/wiki/heat

>Standard:
Also known as SHS, single heat sinks.
Compared to double heat sinks, they have higher heat capacity but lower (about 20-30%) dissipation rate. Generally regarded as inferior in most cases as the higher heat capacity doesn't actually allow you to fire your weapons more before you overheat compared to the higher dissipation rate of double heat sinks in most cases unless you use a lot of these heat sinks.
It does have the advantage of taking up only 1 slot per heat sink which means you can place them in the legs to take advantage of water cooling on some maps or allow you to use Ferro-Fibrous armour with larger weapons.

>Double:
Also known as DHS, double heat sinks.
Unlike the SHS, these occupy 3 slots each while still only weighing 1 ton each. This is pretty much the default choice for heat sink type as most mechs have too many slots than free tonnage otherwise.
Being 3 slot size however means you cannot place them on the legs, cockpit, or center torso, which can be rather limiting as that leaves only the side torso and arms as viable locations.

>Clan Double Heat Sinks:
Also known as cDHS, clan double heat sink. Exclusive to clan mechs.
Slightly less (9%) dissipation rate but only occupy 2 slots each while also weighing 1 ton each.
This means you can stick more of them around the mech including on the legs with less slot concern.

=Structure Type:
A mech has this thing called the "structure" which is weight that you cannot adjust at all outside of this upgrade type to represent the mech's frame, endoskeleton, joints and whatnots.
This upgrade type is the second most expensive.
However, due to the massive amount of weight savings this upgrade provides, it's also near mandatory on every mech. As such, there's really no reason to decide on whether or not to use the endo-steel structure as the answer is almost always a yes.

>Standard:
The standard structure weighs 10% of your mech's tonnage limit, so for the Atlas that we are using as an example, assuming we remove all of its armor, equipment, engine, it would still have an invisible 10 ton item weighing it down, as it is a 100 ton mech.

>Endo-Steel:
This occupies FOURTEEN (14) slots while weighing only 5% of your mech's tonnage limit, so for the Atlas that we are using as an example, it would free up an entire 5 tons to its tonnage.

>Clan Endo-Steel:
Occupies SEVEN (7) slots instead for the same benefits of endo-steel.
Exclusive to clan mechs.
This in combination with the more compact clan modules is what makes them good.

=Missile Guidance Type:
Like the heat sink type but only affecting SRMs and LRMs, this does not affect MRMs, ATMs, or SSRMs.

>Standard:
Your regular missile type.

>Artemis:
+1 slot and +1 tonnage used per SRMs and LRMs and for what?
Slightly less spread and slightly faster velocity for LRMs.
Is this worth it? If you use LRMs then yes, but for SRMs it can be rather dubious as you'll be using SRMs at close enough range for the bonus to not matter and the extra slot and tonnage could've went into more ammo or other modules.

So in conclusion. We should change this Atlas' structure type to endo-steel and the heat sink type to DHS.
And we'll get this:

Whoa, that's an entire 12 free tonnage for only the loss of 0.10 heat management score and 9 free slots occupied!
But wait, what do we spend this extra free tonnage on?
Well you can spend it by mounting heavier weapons, AMS, or a bigger engine.
You might also notice that some of the ammunition has been moved around, this is done to achieve the next step: mounting a light engine.

Speaking of which.

Engine Types and Rating:

A mech cannot go into battle without an engine, the engine type primarily affects a mech's:
-Top speed, forward/reverse
-Durability
-Heat sinks carried

Engines are divided into four types:

Engine Types:
-STD (Standard Engine):
These are the HEAVIEST engine types, also the cheapest c-bills wise, but once you get into a match, being cheap isn't really going to win you games.
Its only really used for mechs with center torso and cockpit mounted weapons as this game doesn't have leg mounted weapons.

-LFE (Light Engine):
LFE stands for Light Fusion Engine and I personally think that calling it LE is good enough as an acronym rather than LFE, but whatever.
These are generally 20% LIGHTER than STD engines and costs twice as much, but like I said, being a cheapskate isn't going to win your matches in this game.
This engine also occupies 4 slots on your mech, specifically 2 slots on each of your side torso.
What this means is:
If you lose a side torso you will lose heat capacity (by 10, flat amount), torso twist speed, and mobility (by 20% for both) and if you lose BOTH sides then you're destroyed.
But hey, on most mechs if you lose both side torsos then that means you've lost 90% of your firepower, and at that point, is it really worth staying in that match for longer?
This makes the light engine the engine of choice for most mechs in the game.

-XL (Extra Light engine)
Yes, the XL stands for extra light (about 30% lighter than standard engine), it's also extra large, it occupies 6 slots on your mech, 3 slots on each side torso.
If you lose a side torso with this engine, your entire mech is destroyed.
Generally regarded as the engine of choice for light mechs.
But why? Light mechs are fragile as it is already, why use the engine that makes you blow up if you lose a side torso? You might ask.
Well a light mech needs to carry as much firepower as it could, these engine allows them to achieve this, it also allows them to move as fast as possible so that they don't get hit in the first place, that's pretty much the reason why light mechs should use these.
Using this engine on any other weight class is considered a bold choice and usually only done on chassis with the following traits:
Good forward/side profile, good torso twist rate, able to mount extreme amount of firepower with the extra weight, etc. we'll get to that part later.
Oh also these thing costs almost triple the price of a standard engine.

-cXL Engine (Clan Extra Light Engine)
The weight saving of an XL engine AND the durability of a light engine. You won't blow up if you lose a side torso with these, same drawbacks as light engine. Can only mounted on clan mechs.
This is the main reason why clan mechs have very little quirks and why they usually don't need that much of it.
Has the same price tag as the XL engine.

=Engine Rating:
Engine Rating varies from 100 to 400.
Yes, there's the 60 engine (which only comes in standard version) but it only exists as a practical joke and can be ignored.
For every 25 intervals in engine rating, an engine gets one additional heat sink/heat sink slot built INTO the engine.

=Engine Heatsinks:
This means that engines below 250 rating requires additional heatsinks to be mounted into the mech for the mech to achieve 10 heat sinks in order to be playable, and as such has a reason to take the standard heat sinks if so inclined.
This also means that engines below 250 are actually heavier than they are labelled, an XL 170 engine might weigh 4 tons, but when you take into account 4 tons of heat sinks needed to achieve 10 heat sinks, it would actually weigh a total of 8 tons.

As for "heat sink slots" these shows up starting from the 275 rating all the way to 400.
How these slots work is that you can mount heat sinks into the engine (this WILL add extra tonnage) directly for ZERO SLOT OCCUPANCY aboard the mech. This is the primary way for heavier mechs to be able to mount additional heat sinks without running out of slots for weapons and ammunition.
Heat sinks mounted into these slots are NOT internal heat sinks.
Internal heat sinks are the first ten (10) heat sinks mounted on a mech counting the ones built into the engine.

=Top Speed:
When you think of an engine you obviously think of how it affects your speed
Generally in this game a mech's speed falls into the following range:

[30-50kph]: EXTREMELY slow, these are the speed at which slow mechs like Annihilator and Dire Wolf generally moves in, the slowest of assault mechs. If you move at this speed, you better bring EXTREME amount of firepower to back it up.
[50-60kph]: Assault speed, assault class mechs can be expected to move at this pace generally.
[60-80kph]:Heavy speed, heavy mechs and even some assault mechs generally move at this pace, it's fast enough to get into position, support slower assault mechs, and outmaneuver pinned enemies that doesn't know when to retreat.
[80-100kph]: Screening speed, this speed range isn't quick enough to exactly scout enemy positions but it's usually enough to intercept enemy scouts and ambushers, and stop them from spotting/harassing your entire team for the entire match.
[100-160kph]: This is what's considered "quick" in this game, mechs at this speed range are generally expected to excel in hit-and-run, ambushes, and generally harassing its opponents if left untouched.

So knowing what engine type and ratings do, let's try to put the biggest light engine we can into our Atlas. With the slots freed up on the side torsos.

And look at that, we could mount the highest engine rating possible on our Atlas, a 360 engine of the light variant which allows us to move at 58kph instead of 48kph, an entire 10kph faster! Using the engine heat sink slots we've also managed to achieve 1.47 heat management score with 5 external heat sinks, use up ALL of our mech's slots, AND still only manage to use 97 tons out of our 100 ton limit!
We've also reallocated the rear armor of the torso into the front armor while reducing the leg armor by a miniscule amount. To maximize our tankiness while facing the enemy!
And possibly reduce our heat sinks as 1.47 heat management score can be considered too high and we'll want to have around 1.3 score generally.

So what's next?
We should change these weapons for ones that are more slot efficient AND effective so we can achieve 100 ton usage of course!


Weaponry:

A mech cannot deploy without at least one weapon mounted on it.
A weapon is mounted on a hardpoint, hardpoints are divided into three types: ballistic, energy, missile.

Ballistic:
Generally these weapons are low heat and fire projectiles which can be hard to aim at long distances.
These traits generally makes weapons in these category to excel in short-medium range as they can just keep firing with less likelihood of missing.

Energy:
Generally these weapons are high heat and mostly consists of laser weapons and PPCs.
PPCs stands for "particle projector cannon" these weapons fires an energy projectile like autocannons though they have significantly faster velocity.
Laser weapons fires hitscan lasers that needs you to fully track your target's movement as they fire.
These traits generally makes energy weapons to be considered the most accurate weapon types, the high heat however can be an issue for newer players as shooting too much and overheating can be very deadly to themselves.

Missiles:
Generally these weapons have low velocity, moderate heat, high projectile spread, and short-medium range, and uses up a lot of ammo rather quickly compared to the other weapon types and has the most variation in playstyles.
These traits can make them rather difficult to use effectively compared to autocannons, but doesn't make them necessarily bad.

Well that's about the general traits of the weapon types, there are also another thing you need to know about weapons:

Range Brackets:
Generally weapons falls into the following range brackets:
You can use a weapon that falls into a longer range brackets at shorter ranges but it might be less than ideal compared to weapons that are made to fight in those ranges.

-Short (100-300m)
Weapons with these as ideal ranges are generally very heat efficient

-Medium:
-Long:

Edited by Ttly, 03 March 2024 - 08:11 PM.

[Ken Harkin]

Every one of my mechs has Seismic Sensor. When it was a 6 Million C-Bill module in the old days and I had < 30 mechs I had probably 6 or 7 of these things. Now I skill them all up.

With the prevalence of stealth mechs this is invaluable. I cannot relate how many times I have used this when the stealth lights come to eat the heavies. Stopping briefly to know which piece of cover they are about to blast out of is invaluable in giving them and AC20 / Snub PPC to the face sandwich. It also works excellently when in the late game stalking battle. I cannot recall how many times I have watched a match end and wished the teammate I was observing had Seismic Sensor.

Having Seismic Sensor does not mean to play like a sedentary potato. Generally being stationary is death and that is still true. Keep moving and stop briefly, only when NOT exposed to enemy fire. SS also works at all heights. If mechs are above or below you they will show up on SS. I have dropped many an arty burst on clusters of red blobs above me while in the basement :-)

True, your teammates will not know what you know which is why you should be using voice chat to call out where the seismic is if you see they are not spotted visually. Keep it brief and clear "multiple seismic, E4 F4 line" or similar. This can save your teammates who are paying attention from a nasty surprise.

[torsie]

Opinions from point of view of rookie:

Cooldown is great if you have build that doesnt make much heat, I have light mech using SSRM and it doesnt get hot, so I put everything into cooldown and now my missile launcher looks like machine gun
I would also say it is must have if you play LRM, unless you have 4x LRM20 which cooks you instantly, you need to shoot as many missiles as you can before you lose target lock or your target hides.

Laser duration important thing I learned from others, cooldown on your laser starts when you are done shooting your laser, shorter duration of laser means your cooldown starts sooner and you can shoot sooner. Weird funny things happen to x pulse lasers.

Ammo depends if I can live long enough to use it, but its almost always good to take it, rather than spending 1 ton on box.

LBX spread is super good and it costs only 2 points.

Gauss charge is also super good, you shouldnt be standing in open place doing nothing, always move and since gauss guns need to charge before shooting, you will be using this all the time. Also helps with fighting little mechs, hold it until they get stuck or try to turn around.

UAC jam is mandatory, if your UAC is not getting jammed you are not shooting your UAC enough.

Missile skills depend if you use lots of missiles or not. On things that use LRM 15 or 20 I always use reduced spread. Crit chance is not that great but it costs only 2 points and if you use big missile mech it means more missiles crit.

Reinforced Chassis is fun on mechs that already have reinforced chassis quirks, Kodiak can become immune to crits.

Seismic sensor is super awesome, it tells you people are above or below you, it tells you someone is behind wall, when you are chasing someone around rocks you can stop and see which way they are coming. Light mechs will often need to get to you, climb hill, walk around wall, walk up ramp, this can often warn you soon enough to at least turn around little, or start moving.
You can even put artillery smoke on yourself and if you see people behind wall they will get hit by it.
EVERYONE SHOULD GET THIS ITS AWESOME !

Sensor range makes your missile lock faster, so this should be super useful for LRMs.

Radar deprivation I use after advice from some people, if you put just 1 point in it, when you get targeted by someone and their target lock ends, it will make white flash effect, like someone taking picture with camera, its super useful, especially when I play some smaller mech that needs to move around without people see me.
You dont know how bad you strategy is until you take this and you turn into movie star.
I also use it as replacement for ECM on some mechs, because mech with BIG RED SQUARE on it, ALWAYS gets shot first.

Enhanced spotting is bad in my opinion. When you see red smoke you run, smaller bombardment is easier to run from, if you have larger bombs it means you have bigger chance to hit something.
Bombs and artillery are great for poking people in cover, you can put that smoke on top of wall or rock and hit people behind it, you can put it below ramp and hit people above you (works great with seismic sensor on maps like HPG or Vitric Station).

[GiraffeOfWisdom]

What the Tilly doin

[torsie]

(You should add paragraph about "command wheel" calling out for help shows your coordinates and makes you glow on map, and you can use "enemy spotted" to mark people who have ECM or stealth armour on and it shows their location on map even behind cover)
This game does suck at explaining.

[Ttly]

torsie, on 27 February 2024 - 02:59 AM, said:

(You should add paragraph about "command wheel" calling out for help shows your coordinates and makes you glow on map, and you can use "enemy spotted" to mark people who have ECM or stealth armour on and it shows their location on map even behind cover) This game does suck at explaining.

Maybe on the section for "stuff to do/pay attention to in the middle of combat" which should be written in a week or so at this rate.