12 replies to this topic

[Xeven]

Currently the Awesome and Catapult have easy to hit cockpits. If I see you and many other players who prefer sniping see you and your in range and facing me you will die and die in 3 shots or less.

Also XL engines allow you to die when you lose a Left Torso, Center Torso or Right Torso. If you want to survive it is best till you learn to not equip XL engines. Standard engine death only occurs when you Center Torso is destroyed. I personally NEVER use XL if I am going to brawl up close. XL can work fine in fast moving scouts and a few other mechs though. Wrap them in Armor if you use em! LRM can tear through a light Mech back left and right torso quick and end you with an XL equiped.

For durability use a big (Fast) standard engine, max armor and then weapons you can stil fit.
If your a Assault you can try moving some Armor up front but be carefull to not expose your back.

Never drop back Armor below 16. I've found this to be a sweet spot that can handle LRM spread damage, a single guass hit and even a dual hit with some chance of internal damage. Dropping it this low is still risky though as some pesky light mech might notice your weak there and tear you up. If you use this stratagey always back into something to fend off any scouts trying to exploit your back and ask for team help to get him off you.

If you have to trade off Armor for more heatsinks or what ever do it in the legs as none really target those anymore, but don't make em chicken legs either cause someone will notice and leg you!!!

Edited by Xeven, 30 October 2012 - 03:09 AM.

[Rooks]

I will always shoot for the legs if I see a person has next to no armor there, because really all it take is a few lrms to hit there to show everyone that you pull the armor from the legs.
Also blowing off someones legs earns you more salvage in the long run if you win.

Also support mechs like the Catapult are great places for xl engine. Also since the side torsos are so hard to hit in a Catapult, you are most likely getting cored anyway, so if you have the money, may as well stick an xl in it (more weight saved for lrm ammo, more heat sinks).

[Jasta85]

For me, the biggest key to survival is to make sure you are getting a positive flow of C-Bills (win or lose). So even if you can afford to stick a 300XL engine in along with double heat sinks and endo-structure upgrade doesnt mean you should. Sure your mech will be a beast, but if you get shredded in your next battle your cost of repairs is gonna skyrocket and you'll be losing money from matches instead of making it.

I would recommend sticking with inexpensive chassis's and loadouts until you get a nice pile of cash to play around with, either that or until you are confident you can win more than lose (in which case you should be playing with a premade as uncoordinated PUGS will almost always lose vrs premades no matter how well equiped your mech is).

[Alture White]

The only brawler I take an XL in is the Dragon. That CT is so prominent that most everybody ignores the rest of my mech and goes straight for the snout. In two months of using the Dragon I've seen maybe one person kill me by focusing on my side torsos (right in this case).

[xxx WreckinBallRaj xxx]

Ironbar Sinister, on 30 October 2012 - 08:23 AM, said:

Or just buy MC.
Use MC to buy the most expensive Atlas or two, sell the chassis - keep the hardware - then you've got plenty of C-Bills to play with.

Horrible advice unless you like wasting money. A better investment would have been to just buy Premium and farm it for a few days.

[ZivyTerc]

Cicada also seems to have a huge cockpit located at the center of your torso, where most people tend to shoot first/by instinct. I found out the hard way (by getting headshotted a few times) and I somewhat regret buying the Mech now.

[Rushin Roulette]

Actually, the Awsome head hitbox has been shrunk quite a bit since the last patch. You can notice this if you are in the mechlab and want to select the cockpit section from the mech display (not the paperdoll).

Currently the mechs with the easiest to hit cockpits are the Catapult and the Cicida, closely followed by the Jenner.

I just added the Cicida and the Jenner if you can manage to find one standing still long enough to go for the head .

[Zeke Steiner]

ZivyTerc, on 31 October 2012 - 03:44 AM, said:

Cicada also seems to have a huge cockpit located at the center of your torso, where most people tend to shoot first/by instinct. I found out the hard way (by getting headshotted a few times) and I somewhat regret buying the Mech now.

I put more armor on its rear than its front, more useful for hit and run. I sorta regret buying the mech too as I need to dump more c-bills for the double heatsinks for a better weapons payload.

[razorjack]

Quote

Dropping it this low is still risky though as some pesky light mech might notice your weak there and tear you up.

how to notice that mech has no armour on legs or other parts ??

[Urza Mechwalker]

I still equip XL. Because most of time My center torso blows off before the side torso anyway (because of the endemic Streak cats around).


The key for survival is not on your armor layout and or usage of XL engines. Its on usage of terrain to keep hidden and expose the least possible, sided with the proper usage of engegament envelopes ( get close to LRM boats and stay away from streak boats)

[Satan n stuff]

razorjack, on 04 November 2012 - 02:57 PM, said:

how to notice that mech has no armour on legs or other parts ??

Lock on to the mech ( by looking at them and pressing "r" ) and wait for detailed info to appear in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Relative armor and internal strength can be seen here ( compared to 100% condition ) and you can see which weapons the target has. The hit locations in the display are arranged as if you were facing the mech, so if you're behind them they are mirrored. If a mech has orange or red in either leg they likely won't have a lot of armor there. If a mech has no visible armor on the arms it means they probably don't use those so it's pointless to shoot them.