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[Hayashi]

Welcome to the Intermediate+ Players' Guide to the Jenner!



Introduction section

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1.0.1: Introduction to the guide

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Well, I just got the Jenners up to Master level, so I've decided to run a little guide here on how to play a Jenner in the most powerful ways possible. This guide will encompass various sections because of its utter size, so here's a content page of what you can expect, before we begin. Feel free to skip ahead to the sections you'd rather read if you already know some of this stuff

1.0.2: Contents

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Introduction section
1.0.1: Introduction to the guide
1.0.2: Contents
1.0.3: What you need to already know to use this guide effectively
1.0.4: Other guides you should read first, if you haven't already
1.0.5: Why pilot a Jenner?
1.0.6: Who should not pilot a Jenner?
Mechlab section
1.1.1: Mech construction: Overall picture
1.1.2: Mech construction: Variant-specific
1.1.3: Weaponry useful for Jenners
1.1.4: Equipment useful for Jenners
1.1.5: Recommended optimised builds
1.1.6: Recommended piloting skills
1.1.7: Recommended upgrade order
1.1.8: Recommended modules
Piloting section
1.2.1: Piloting and targeting quirks about the Jenner
1.2.2: Jump Jet usage
1.2.3: How to aim in bad situations
1.2.4: How to not get hit
Tactics section
1.3.1: How to disengage
1.3.2: Focusing fire
1.3.3: How to kill an enemy in the fastest time possible
1.3.4: How to support the other Mechs in your team
1.3.5: Base capturing and counter-capturing
1.3.6: Video guide
How to kill a Jenner section
1.4.1: Recommended weapons to use against Jenners
1.4.2: Recommended chassis to use against Jenners
1.4.3: Counter-Jenner tactics
Legalese and other miscellaneous section
1.5.1: Disclaimers
1.5.2: Acknowledgements

1.0.3: What you need to already know to use this guide effectively

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You should already know the basic controls behind movement. Targeting. The usage of the Battlegrid. Comms - ingame and VOIP. How to assign weapon groups. Heat management.

If you don't already know these, refer to the guides in the following section.

1.0.4: Other guides you should read first, if you haven't already

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Battlemech and weaponry statistics - By Ohmwrecker
Basic piloting controls - By PGI
Tips and tricks on MechWarrior Online - By Prosperity Park
Tactics per Mech class - By Discordantone
Teamplay guide - By Taryys

I am not intending to repeat what they have already done a good job of explaining beforehand, or this already long guide would become even longer.

1.0.5: Why pilot a Jenner?

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First, we'd have to answer 'why pilot a light Mech'. The larger, more heavily armored and armed chassis of the game are able to bring far more firepower to bear per strike than a light Mech ever can. But in most cases, the top damagers in a match tend to be good light Mech pilots. Why the discrepancy?

The answer is that even though per strike heavier chassis do more damage, light Mechs fire far more strikes than heavier Mechs can hope to. Because of their speed, they can almost fire constantly, whereas heavier Mechs will have to hold their fire when their targets duck behind cover. When targets are dead, heavier Mechs take more time to get to the next target.

Also, because of speed, light Mechs control the tactics of a match. They dictate when and where battle takes place. When you're capable (and especially if you're dropping with a capable team), you can manipulate the battlefield to ensure your team always has an advantage in firepower over the enemy. You know more about where all the enemy Mechs are than your allies do, and you can use that knowledge to direct your team on weak spots in their defense, or call down LRM strikes by your team into unsuspecting enemies.

Then why a Jenner? There's Jenners, Commandos, Ravens and Cicadas.

Commandos are as fast as Jenners and carry an extra missile slot in one variant. They're a good alternative, and have even better torso twist capabilities as they have lower arm actuators. They're also cheaper to repair and buy. However, Jenners have Jump Jets. That alone more than makes up for the difference. I'll explain why later.

Ravens are interesting. Unfortunately, the only variant that can carry ballistics seems to be devoid of Jump Jets, which is a problem. The other variants have them, but then carry a less deadly load of hardpoints than Jenners. Also, they're a bad choice for a starter light Mech as the engine that comes with the chassis is so slow you'll be dying more often than not.

Cicadas are technically Medium mechs due to their tonnage, but I'm including them here as they travel as fast as lights. They also have ballistics, better armour and a better starting engine. They tend to have more reallocatable tonnage as well because when endo steel and ferro fibrous upgrades are added, those are more significant on heavier chassis. I'd recommend them above Ravens, but due to the lack of jump jet capability and an overall larger hit profile I'd rather Jenners to them. Your mileage may vary.

1.0.6: Who should not pilot a Jenner?

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• People who don't like to think while gaming. If you're unable or unwilling to tactically use the Jenner, you won't get very far. If you're good at aiming but not very amenable to planning, then it would be better to pilot something which requires more aiming skill and less organised thought - like a Gausscat, or most other Mechs in the heavy+ weight classes. This Mech is a deathtrap if you don't plan, because it has very little armour, and very small Alpha damage.
  
• People who have very bad FPS. If you can't shoot accurately because of lag, please pilot a StreakCat or LRMCat instead, you'll probably have a better time.
  
• People who don't like to die. You will die a lot when first starting out on this chassis - this would put you off trying it. But after a while, when you get used to piloting it, you might die less often than other pilots.
  
• People who don't like steep learning curves. The learning curve for effective Jenner piloting is anything but shallow.

Mechlab section

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1.1.1: Mech construction: Overall picture

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Let's go over the numbers first. Jenners are 35 tons. They travel at up to 138.9 KPH before Speed Tweak. They are tied with Commandos, Ravens and Cicadas as the fastest Mechs in the game. They all have Jump Jet capability, and all carry Energy weapons, but none of them can mount ballistics. Ferro Fibrous armour tends to reduce up to 1 ton of weight, whereas Endo Steel reduces 1.5 tons of weight. They can carry up to 238 points of armour. They carry 2 module slots by default, but a third can be added with the Master level unlock. In general, you will want to have DHS upgrades (because they all carry energy weapons, and the majority of the heatsinks will be in the engine by default), Ferro Fibrous, Endo Steel and the XL engine 300. There is more than enough critical slots for all the upgrades to apply. However, note that upping stuff will also up your repair costs. There are three variants, the D(DF), the F and the K.

1.1.2: Mech construction: Variant-specific

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JR7-D
This is the Founders' variant and thus the first Jenner a large subsection of the population will have access to. It is also the most lag-resistant variant as it has 2 missile hardpoints. Endo steel should be your first upgrade to free up weight for extra armour.

JR7-K
This variant starts out with Ferro Fibrous armour, but in the long run it is clearly inferrior to the JR7-D variant as it lacks one missile hardpoint. Endo steel should be your first upgrade to free up weight for extra armour. When you've finished getting Master pilot skills for all variants, you may want to sell this variant, since you'll never be using it when you can use the D variant.

JR7-F
This is the energy boat configuration. DHS is a mandatory first upgrade, it will increase the damage you can output per second drastically.

1.1.3: Weaponry useful for Jenners

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Due to the way light mechs play, there are two styles you can use. The first is a long-distance style - your objective will be to stay as far as possible from the action and LRM enemies to oblivion while spotting for other LRM Mechs. You are the only thing that can LRM lights effectively, because you're the only thing that can stay more than 180m away from lights. The second is a very short distance style - your objective will be to stay as close as possible to the backside of enemy Mechs and repeatedly hammer their weak rear armour until they die. You can also force LRM boats to disengage - if they face you, they will live longer, but can't fire at their original targets, so you save your teammates burning hot death. But if they don't face you, you will kill them, so once again, you save your team.

Because of the speeds at which you move at, you will want to carry fast recycling weapons that require as little aiming as possible so that you can fire throughout a whole match without running out of ammo, and without having to stop your Mech to aim. If you stop, as a Light mech, you WILL die soon enough if you don't watch your surroundings very carefully.



This is adapted from Ohmwrecker's guide, but with a new field of my own design - D/HST, or damage per heat second ton. This is one of the best ways to measure the effective damage per second of a weapon if you have an abundance of hardpoints, and ignoring the amount of tons ammo take up. Because of this, the D/HST values of missiles are somewhat inflated, as in reality they do require ammo to be supplied. However, it provides an excellent point of comparison between different launchers which use the same ammo, and is a perfect way to compare effective damage per second for ammo-independent weapons.

From these values it is immediately clear that you should never use LRM10 or SRM6 unless you have a shortage of hardpoints - which makes the JR7-D variant unquestionably superior to the JR7-K variant when fully upgraded.

It also reveals a pretty good balance between energy weapons in terms of D/HST against DPS and range.

Note that with full armour, XL 300, DHS, FF, AMS and ES upgrades all in, you will be left with about 9 tons to allocate in your Jenner. These will have to be split between weapons and heat sinks. This almost completely eliminates everything above medium pulse lasers from your armory, because using those weapons would leave you with insufficient tonnage. Or to put it another way, their D/HST is too pathetic for usage on a weight-limited chassis.

1.1.4: Equipment useful for Jenners

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1. Jump Jets. This is the reason why Jenners are so overpowered. As Jump Jets are currently implemented as an on/off switch 1 jump jet is sufficient - 5 is a bit of a waste. I expect PGI will eventually patch it so than 1 jump jet will give you only 1/5 of the thrust or endurance of 5 jump jets, but that is still a moot factor. 1 jump jet will still be sufficient for our purposes - I'll explain more later. You are not going to use this to fly into the sky - if you do that, you'll actually die very fast.
2. XL 300 engine - this is a MUST. Between 2 light mechs of equal skill, the faster one almost always wins. Speed gives you damage per second as you travel to your target faster. It gives you extra survivability as you travel to cover/your friends faster when in trouble. It allows you to keep on the back of another light pilot and blow his rear torso to pieces. It is 1.5 tons lighter than the original Standard 245, which gives you enough tonnage for AMS. Make purchasing this your #1 priority.
3. Endo Steel - it's 1.5 tons off.
4. Ferro Fibrous - it's 0.8 tons off a fully armoured Jenner.
5. AMS - This is the difference between life and death against Streak boats, Streak lights and LRM boats.

Some people like to carry TAG. I don't recommend it, an Artemis-equipped boat is good enough, and extra firepower far outweighs the benefits of slightly higher accuracy unless you run with a dedicated LRM team. If your team has at least one missile boat that you are used to working with, though, it might be worth considering. But don't carry more than one TAG, there is no benefit to doing so. Also, NARC in its current iteration is near-useless even for Mechs with more spare tonnage than the Jenner, so don't consider using it.

This sets the stage for full Mech loadout plans.

1.1.5: Recommended optimised builds

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Note that for all the builds mentioned, you will probably be allocating 0.50 tons to a single Jump Jet, 1.5 tons to AMS + ammo (ammo in the head) and you will have XL300/280, DHS, FF and Endo Steel all acquired. Missile ammunition, where necessary, will go into the legs - if your legs can get critted you're pretty much dead anyway, and this saves you cASE tonnage. Also. DHS can't be used in the legs, so this maximises your space setup. Where applying extra DHS, put them into your side torsos as your arm can be blown off with your side torso intact, but if your side torso is blown off so is your arm... and if you're running an XL, you're going to be dead anyway.

JR7-D: LRM type
If you are opting for a long range Jenner of 2x LRM5, you'll already be using up 5 tons in 2 launchers and 1 ton ammo minimum. That leaves only 4 tons - I would advocate 4 small lasers and 2 tons LRM5 ammo. Less small lasers than that, you're going to be toast if someone catches up to you. You won't need that many heat sinks because your engine already provides 10 for free (in an XL 300), which will be doubled when you upgrade to DHS for a total of 20 free heat sinks. 4 small lasers produce 2.7 heat per second, which requires 27 heat sinks for full mitigation. 2 LRM5 produce 1.2 heat per second, which requires 12 heat sinks for full mitigation. You are effectively heat saving when you use the LRM launchers with DHS, and your small lasers will barely generate any more heat than you will already be able to dissipate.

Besides, if you overheat in such a setup, you're overusing your small lasers and underusing your LRMs, and should probably switch to a better short range config.

JR7-D: SSRM2 type
This setup has twin SSRM2s and 2 tons ammo, leaving 4 tons to allocate. At this point you should decide if you wish to have sustained fire with greater damage per second, or more infrequent firing with more damage in the alpha but lower damage per second. If the former, 4 small pulse lasers. If the latter, 4 medium lasers. Personally I prefer the 4 medium laser option as it gives me a whopping 30 damage alpha on the back of any unsuspecting target - and my tactics usually involve hopping from unsuspecting target to unsuspecting target. But the 4 small pulse option is superior if you tend to play more as a counter-scout, where pulsed damage is important and you don't get a chance to land a 4 medium laser alpha. Heat output for them requires either 40 or 44 heat sinks to mitigate, so you will be firing your lasers only half the time. Some people prefer to use 4 small lasers instead, which requires 27 heat sinks - then they add in 2 DHS with the remaining weight, giving a total of 22.8 heat sinks. This would be best if you intend to fight nearly nonstop with circle strafing and whatnot.

JR7-F: Small Pulse Laser/Medium Laser Boat
This setup has 6 small pulse lasers/medium lasers, and 3 heat sinks for 66/60 heat generation vs 24.2 heat mitigation. If unable to handle the heat, switch one around for 55/50 vs 25.6 heat.

JR7-F: Small Laser + Small Pulse Laser/Medium Laser Hybrid
This setup has 4 small lasers and 2 small pulse lasers/medium lasers, then the remaining 5 tons all go into heat sinks. This leaves 49/47 vs 27 heat.

1.1.6: Recommended piloting skills

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In a way you could say that all of them are useful, but I recommend the following order:

• Coolrun. You'll be running a 2:1 heat dissipation ratio, so this is important.
  
• Anchor Turn. Your lifeline in a light vs light fight.
  
• Twist Speed. The other light vs light thing.
  
• Twist X. For more effective backstabbing while on the move.
  
• Kinetic Burst. So you can take off faster after parking behind an unsuspecting target.
  
• Hard Brake. So you can stop behind an unsuspecting target better.
  
• Heat Containment. So you can fight longer without having to withdraw.
  
• Arm Reflex. This isn't important, the Jenner has no proper arms anyway.
  
• Speed Tweak. While the game client hard limits Mechs to a top speed of 140 KPH, with this upgrade on you can downgrade your engine to a XL 280 and still keep the 140 KPH speed. This frees up 1.5 tons for other uses. It's like a free Endo Steel upgrade.
  
• Fast Fire. More damage per second.
  
• Quick Ignition. Faster recovery for those rare occasions in which you end up overheating.
  
• Pinpoint. Not really useful at all since you're firing lasers from your arms, and your missiles should be of the homing variety anyway.

Note that by getting all 8 basic skills for all 3 chassis types, you can unlock the Elite tier. This DOUBLES the effects of the basic skills. You will want to do this as soon as you can afford to.

1.1.7: Recommended upgrade order

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JR7-D/K

• XL300+AMS
  
• Endo Steel
  
• Ferro Fibrous
  
• DHS

JR7-F

• DHS
  
• XL300+AMS
  
• Endo Steel
  
• Ferro Fibrous

Because the JR7-F is an energy boat.

No matter what you do, don't get Artemis. You don't have the tonnage for it, and their ammo costs are a pain.

1.1.8: Recommended modules

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• Fast capture. This can change the tide of battle dramatically.
  
• Target info. This might help somewhat, but you don't need full targeting info to give your team a target lock. And that is the MAIN purpose of your scouting, anyway.
  
• Advanced zoom - completely useless to a Jenner. In addition to its pixellation problems, the Jenner is not a sniper Mech. If at far range, you use LRM5, not an ERPPC. Therefore, you never need this.

Piloting section

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1.2.1: Piloting and targeting quirks about the Jenner

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• The Jenner is a short Mech. Taller than the Commando, but still short. This means that while in places like River City, you'll be running half-submerged, making you hard to hit and impossible to leg while in the river. This gives you a massive tactical advantage against mediums and above, though you may occasionally have your view blocked by water.
  
• The Jenner has the tightest turn radius, tied with the Raven, thanks to its Jump Jet capability, combined with its speed. That makes it impossible to fight in a light vs light matchup one on one. Use this to your advantage. It makes you capable of killing any Mech solo - and occasionally capable even of killing all enemies in a 3 vs 1 fight under River City half-submerged conditions.
  
• The Jenner has no lower arm actuators, therefore its reticle only moves up and down. The Left/Right never deviates from centre. This actually makes it easier to aim in very high speed instances, since you don't need to care about left/right alignment problems. However, it makes it less flexible than the Commando in the hands of a master pilot.
  
• The Jenner's missiles are in the centre torso, but for some odd reason missile lock is still acquired by the LASER reticle, not the centre reticle. In other words, unless using unguided SRMs (bad idea), you don't even need to care about the existence of the torso reticle. Everything can be aimed using your arm reticle.
  
• The Jenner has very small side torso hitboxes, and a relatively large centre torso hitbox, like the Catapult. Therefore, XL engines aren't risky, because the chance of a XL side torso core are nearly zero.
  
• While the Jenner's cockpit is also in the front like a Catapult's, it's insanely hard to cockpit hit because the hitbox is small, and because you move at 138.9 KPH..And if you shutdown, a Heavy+'s alpha will kill you in one hit anyway, even if it were the centre torso.
  
• A legged Jenner is still faster than most Mechs unlegged. That means that as long as nobody's actively shooting you, you can get 2 kills + after being legged. When you're legged there's an initial period in which you're reduced to about 20% of your maximum speed, but if you can survive for 2 minutes after that or so, it will slowly restore back up to 50% of your maximum spped. Not too sure if this is a bug or intended.

1.2.2: Jump Jet usage

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This is the IMPORTANT section. Jump Jets allow you to turn your Mech in midair faster than you can turn your Mech on the ground. This can be exploited in two ways.

Firstly, when you're circle strafing anyone, tap spacebar every half a second. This allows you to turn with your midair turn radius, which is tighter than what any other Mech save the Raven can handle. Therefore, you get to shoot them, while they'll still be in mid-turn.

Secondly, when you're being chased, don't initate a circle turn, you'll already be disadvantaged from the outset. Go find a nice hill somewhere near you, and run zigzag towards it. Once you're off the other side of the hill, tap spacebar every half a second and turn your mech around 180 degrees while STILL IN MIDAIR. Then, release the rest of your power before hitting the ground to protect your legs. Now you're charging directly towards your pursuer, who will have NO IDEA what is in store for him. Essentially, alpha his centre torso, then break right before you collide, and tap spacebar as before to do a tight circle to the left. This puts you behind the enemy, where you want to be, and reverses the hunter-hunted position in about 3-4 seconds. More significantly, very few pilots have the fortitude to deal with such a reversal - many of them may panic. And a panicking pilot... is a dead pilot.

1.2.3: How to aim in bad situations

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Specifically, lag. My location in the world means I have 300ms ish lag all the time, so I'm actually slower than what I think I am. Similarly, enemies are faster than I think they are.

This means, I need to give more allowance than necessary to avoid being shot, because my leg is behind where I think I am - and I need to shoot ahead of enemy targets, especially if they're also light mechs. Leading the target becomes almost second nature after you get used to it.

Also, Streaks are useful here, because Streak targeting is determined not by you, but by the server. Therefore, even in lag, they almost always hit, unless against another 138.9 KPH mech. Mechs at those speeds can outrun streaks if running perpendicular to the Streak firing direction.

1.2.4: How to not get hit

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• When you see the "INCOMING MISSILES" message, run behind the nearest tall building you can find, putting it between yourself and the enemy base. LRMs usually come from there.
  
• You can outrun Streaks perpendicularly, and LRMs to a more limited extent. So don't run straight AWAY from missiles, always run across them, if they're in their effective range.
  
• Streaks have a max range of 270m. LRMs have a minimum range of 180m. If facing an LRM boat at 200 metres who fires on you, run directly towards him. You'll most likely cross the 180m mark before his missiles do, which reduces his LRMs to zero damage. This is VERY IMPORTANT, 10 metres can be the difference between certain death in a 68 damage 2x LRM20 salvo, and being completely unharmed. Similarly, if you see a Streak Cat at 250 metres, run directly away and all the missiles will miss.
  
• Streaks can't be used without missile lock. When facing a Streak cat at 90 metres, run directly towards him, then past his back, and run for the nearest cover. Put it between yourself and the Streak Cat and get out of there. You have teammates that can deal with them better than you can.
  
• Don't shut down. Shutting down is an almost certain way to die - unless they're shut down, too. Quick Ignition makes all the difference.
  
• Run in a zigzag way, If you run straight away from anything except guided missiles, you're going to be hit in the back with a high damage alpha and die.
  
• Don't fight stacked odds. People can saturate an area with so much fire that you can't avoid being hit, if there are enough of them. If stacked, move away from them and force them to separate. If need be, cap their base.
  
• Use cover when up against snipers or LRM boats. Cover is 100% defensive with no drawbacks - at least until destructible scenery is programmed.
  
• Don't jump jet into the sky, you're asking for an LRM/SSRM salvo that will insta-kill you.
  
• If there are only two enemies in an area, hide behind one of them and stop. Especially if they're Atlases. Good players will hold their fire while you shoot the crap out of their back armoud. Bad players will shoot anyway and help you with their friendly fire. Either way, you win.
  
• Don't run in a predictable way. If people know your running pattern they will be able to detect points where your left-right alignment is not changing with respect to them, and if they fire in that period, you're toast.

Tactics section

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1.3.1: How to disengage

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By disengaging, I refer to ceasing combat with those whom you are currently fighting. There are five reasons to disengage.

• You are outnumbered.
  
• You are fighting one-on-one, while a nearby teammate is also fighting one-on-one.
  
• Your base is being captured.
  
• Your health is terribad.
  
• You are fighting against a setup that is strong against a Jenner.

To do so, don't simply run away in a straight line. It will certainly get you killed.

• First, look at where your allies are, and run towards them. If you run away, the enemies will eventually catch you and kill you. But if you run towards your team, your team can help to either kill your pursuers, or at the very least distract them.
  
• Second, look for cover, and dodge in between areas of cover to break missile lock while minimising the time they have with your exposed back.
  
• Third, look for uneven ground, then pick the most uneven route to use. People have a hard time firing when they have to account for both horizontal and vertical movement. Remember that you have jump jets that can clear slightly uneven ground, while most pursuers do not.
  
• Fourth, look for enemy Assault or Heavy mechs in your escape path, and shoot them while you pass to get some extra damage out. Also, try to put them in between you and the pursuer so they'll have to either hold fire or risk friendly fire damage.
  
• Last, run in a zigzag, but an unpredictable zigzag. Tap your Jump Jets every now and then to tighten up the zigzag, making it impossible to hit you with ACs, Gausses, or PPCs.

1.3.2: Focusing fire

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Never fight one on one if you can help it. If your teammates are already ganging up on someone, join the party. If they're fighting one on one, join the party and make it an unbalanced fight. If you fight fairly, equally skilled pilots with equally good builds will have 50% chance of success. If you gang up, their chance of success can drop to 0%. This is the secret to running a 8-0 match in a total PUG scenario. As a Jenner pilot you are one of the most mobile weapon platforms - thus, you can add your strength to the largest range of engagements on the battlefield. Your attempts to stack probabilities against the enemy team, in itself, can be the difference between victory and defeat.

It also gives you a ton load of assists, of course.

1.3.3: How to kill an enemy in the fastest time possible

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• Focus fire.
  
• Aim for the cockpit of the Mech if your ping is low and your aim is good, or if they shut down.
  
• Aim for Red-Internal target areas to blow whatever component off. Most of the time, this happens to be the centre torso, or one of the side torsos. This could crit engines/XL engines, or remove powerful weapons from your enemies, especially for Atlases and Hunchbacks.
  
• Aim for the rear of the Mech in most other situations.
  
• Aim for the legs when fighting Lights.

1.3.4: How to support the other Mechs in your team

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• Spot for LRMs. TAG is useful, but not strictly necessary. Just use the 'R' key or whatever you've configured it to, in order to keep a target on lock at all times. This allows LRMs to help you.
  
• Give scouting information. This is obviously easier with voice comms, but still possible even with ingame team chat. Tell your team the number of Mechs and their Battlegrid location. Identity of the Mechs is not necessary most of the time, so don't stick your head out of cover for too long, or you'll die.
  
• Focus fire. Already mentioned.
  
• Attack the LRM boats and snipers on the opposing team from behind. They might turn to face you - in which case they stop launching LRMs, and you save your team a world of pain. Or if they don't, they'll die and you save your team a world of pain.
  
• If there are multiple single engagements in a single are (happens often especially with PUGs), after helping focus fire on one, kill him outright if he never turns to face you. But if they switch targets away from your ally to you, then you disengage and move to the next fight in the same area. People take some time to change their mindset - once they've decided to face you they generally will try to hunt you down. When doing so, they don't attack your first ally, which gives him free back shots. Repeat this often enough, you can, alone, distract the entire enemy team, giving your team the ability to kill all of them without resistance.
  
• Shoot from the back the enemy lights who are hiding behind your team's assaults. This may often get you a kill, but it always saves your ally from certain death.
  
• Cap the enemy base. You force some of them to break and run, and most good players never return to base alone. They return in pairs or trios, because they don't know what odds they're facing. This turns a 8v8 engagement into a 7v5 engagement favouring your team. Or if they don't return, you can pull off a 0-7 win. I've actually done this before against an opposing PUG.

1.3.5: Base capturing and counter-capturing

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You should already know this, but stay inside the box to cap an enemy base, or stay inside your own base's box to break an enemy cap. The game doesn't care how many enemy Mechs there are in your base when there's at least one on your team, and often you'll find you are that one.

Doing this, if at least 2 other mechs on your team are capping the enemy's base, if you can stall the enemy Mechs for long enough, you can pull through a victory even if you die doing so.

I've delayed a 5-Mech cap before with 2 mechs on my team countercapping. That led to a 3-5 win before they managed to kill me. This is bad for your repair costs, though, but since you cause a victory, then win XP and CBills should usually make it worth it even for you. And your team will benefit, even though they'll never get to thank you.

Because the cap point has a huge structure now, try to put that cover between you and your enemy cappers. Your priority is not to kill them in cases when you're outnumbered, but to not die while you stay in that area. Again, the turn radius from Jump Jet triggering really shines here.

I've already mentioned that capping the enemy base stacks the odds against them, so do that if you're not close enough to the battlezone to help directly.

1.3.6: Video guide

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How to kill a Jenner section

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1.4.1: Recommended weapons to use against Jenners

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• Streak SRM 2. Jenners are VERY hard to hit even without buggy netcode, and having the server do the hitting for you really helps a lot with that respect.
  
• LRMs. Again, because they auto-track. They also do a lot of damage per salvo, enough to outright destroy a stationary Jenner.
  
• Pulse Lasers - because the hits are pulsed, you tend to do more damage than with the continuous fire variety lasers.
  
• Small Lasers - because they're good for everything at short range, really.
  
• LBX-AC-10 - the spread of the weapon means a large proportion of a well aimed shot can hit even if the centre of the shot misses by just a bit.

1.4.2: Recommended chassis to use against Jenners

---

Catapult A1 StreakCat
Catapult A1 LRMCat
JR7-D SSRM2 variety
Commando 3 SSRM2 variety
Cicada 4 MPLAS variety
Max speed CN9-D
Laserback

I wouldn't recommend either the Atlas or Awesome. Sure, they carry more weapons, but their turn radius is so terribad you wouldn't be able to fire, in most cases.

1.4.3: Counter-Jenner tactics

---

• Reserve Alphastrike on your single hit weapons, like Gausses, until the Jenners do something stupid like shut down on overheat. You wouldn't want to be unable to fire when there's that perfect opportunity to.
  
• Gang up on the Jenner. Saturate the area with enough fire and no pilot can make it out alive.
  
• Trip the Jenner - this is no longer possible until the devs put knockdown collisions back into the game.
  
• Put your back to a wall. We love them backs. If we have to face your from in front we're less likely to fight you and more likely to move to another target.
  
• Keep moving. If you stop your cockpit for more than 3 seconds, you can bet I will kill you in that time.
  
• Lead the target. We tend to move so fast the netcode can't fully keep up, so if you aim exactly at us with lasers you'll miss. This is hideously annoying to us as well, by the way, because as Lights we're also counter-lights... we're waiting for the day that the netcode can be fixed properly.
  
• Get out of the water. We're short, so you can't hit us very well there. Don't even think of trying, or you won't live long enough to regret it.
  
• In a circle strafe there are two points in the circle where the Jenner will be running directly away or directly towards you. In those points, alpha strike - there's no way it can be evaded in time.

Legalese and other miscellaneous section

---

1.5.1: Disclaimers

---

This guide is accurate as of 18 November 2012. It will be invalidated by upcoming patches... until I update it again. By which time I'll also update this date here.

1.5.2: Acknowledgements

---

The majority of this guide is from my gameplay experience. Image starting the post is from http://massively.joy...ces-the-jenner/. Weapon stats are kindly provided by Ohmwrecker in his guide, and were the basis for the loadout plans. Of course, credit must go to PGI and IGP for making a game worthy of spending hours on - not only to type a guide like this, but the playing beta testing of which. I'd also like to thank the folks from Gensokyo - before meeting them, I played ONLY PUGs. Now thanks to them, I have both premade and PUG experience. The idea of typing a guide without having experience in both is laughable, I wouldn't have had enough knowledge otherwise to start.

This second edition has edits thanks to the eagle eyes of Tuhalu and feedback from Kiiyor.

You may now post!

[knight-of-ni]

I tell you this is pure gold!
My Jenner and I thank you for taking the time to document this.
We will review it intently.

[knight-of-ni]

So I've read through this a couple of times and given it some thought.
Like a similar thread I was participating in, this really helps identify areas where I can improve on.

Here is my current JR7-D build:
245XL
Endo Steel
DHS (I forget how many)
AMS
4 ML
2 SSRM
2 Jump Jets
Max Std Armor

Note that this build does not have enough critical spots for Ferro Fibrous.
I like how cool this mech runs. I can group fire all 4 ML's quite a bit before I have to slow down my firing rate.

An obvious weakness of this build is the smaller engine. At the time I switched to an XL engine, it was hard enough for me to keep from running into things at stock speeds. Consequently, I choose to stay at stock speed until I make it a little further through my learning curve.

But enough background.
I enjoyed watching how quickly you came up on that catapult in the video guide. I can see that your piloting is much more precise than mine. Your firing is much more reserved that what I typically do as well. You hold your fire until you are directly behind the mech. I've flagged that as something I need to practice on.

Something else in the video is the lack of response from the rest of the opposing team when you started firing on that catapult. They likely weren't talking between each other which leads me to my question.

Let's say that the other team's lrms started firing on you the moment you attacked that catapult. On one hand, as a scout you just succeeded at your job. You have successfully drawn the attention of half the enemy team away from your allies. On the other hand, you now have a big problem due to a change in weather pattern: 100% chance of an lrm storm.

I know the textbook answer is to seek cover, but that is often easier said than done. Can you provide any specific details on what you might do in that situation? Any Ninja-like tactics one can apply?

I think part of the answer is my choice of engine, but I'm reasonably certain there is more to it than just that.

As always, I look forward to learning how to be a better Jenner pilot.

[Corleym]

excellent post and write up - many thanks for taking the time and effort to do this.

[Tuhalu]

Nice guide!

Following are some corrections/alternate points of view.

• Ferro-fibrous only saves 0.8 tonnes on a fully armored Jenner. To make it 1 ton, you have to strip off 6 points of armor.
  
• The math on your LRM type is wonky. First you say it costs 6 ton for 2x LRM5 and 1x ammo. That is only 5 tons. Then you say you have 5 tons left, when it's only 4 tonnes left... I presume your build is actually 2x LRM5 with 3x ammo (total) and 4 small lasers. That would fit the tonnage.
  
• None of your builds include tonnage for Jump Jets. The rest of your guide talks about how awesome they are and how they make the Jenner better than other comparable mechs (not that I disagree that Jump Jets are really good!). You should probably fix that.
  
• 4 small lasers calculate as 2.9 heat per second. 4 small lasers with Cool Running at the basic level give 2.7 heat per second. 4 small lasers with Cool Running after you've unlocked Elite give 2.5 heat per second. You should give your heat numbers with regard to the Elite level because that's where a player is going to spend most of their playing time.
  
• Some maps run cooler than others... With 10 double heat sinks in your engine (currently equal to 20 singles, but who knows how long that'll last!) and Elite level Cool Running, you can fire your 4 small lasers on them for a very long time.
  
• Even if the game does hard limit you to 140kph, speed tweak is hardly useless! Having it means you can put in 275 XL engine and still hit 140 kph. This frees up another 1.5 ton to spend on equipment. Assuming you can afford the engine (and you should probably aim for it in the long term), I would get Speed Tweak before Quick Ignition and Pinpoint Accuracy.
  
• Opinion: I would get Target Info before Fast Capture. First, because it's a lot cheaper. Second, because base cap races only happen if people aren't even trying to fight. Otherwise bases tend to be defended well enough that the use or lack of Fast Capture is not going to swing the battle. Third, because knowing a mechs weapon load out and/or armor weaknesses sooner is very useful. You can't play smart if you don't know enough.
  
• A legged Jenner is only faster than other mechs if you never stop moving. Anything that slows your speed down (like using your Jump Jets!) at all will reduce it permanently at that point. It's some wierd physics bug they have going. Every mech is supposed to be reduced to 16.2 kph when legged.
  
• The benefits of TAG and Artemis IV stack. While you take a gamble with PUG groups knowing what to do, TAG is incredibly useful in an organised group with good LRM support (even just 1 guy!).

[Galaxy Drifter]

So if your prefered Jenner-D fighting style is to sneak up behind someone, unload and go find another target, why would you not want to use 2xSRM4's (which you said was a bad idea, in another area) instead of SSRM2?

[Grizley]

I find the SRM4s extremely hard to land on another light mech. If you're in a 2xSRM4 Jenner vs a 2xSSSM Jenner then you will lose.

In my experience the 6x ML Jenner is the best for use vs heavys and assaults and the 2xSSRM build murders lights. Both are about the same against mediums.

The Jump turn really is incredibly good. Maybe later when people get used to it they will stop chasing Jenners around corners so much but for now it's an EASY way to land a near guarenteed 30 damage on an enemy. It's also a great way to throw off direct fire weapons, from their point of view they see your jets flicker for a fraction of a second then you're off at a 45 degree angle from your original path of travel.

In a PUG vs PUG situation a Jenner can give their team a massive advantage sneaking around to cap, or just closing in cover and hitting a couple of their assaults. Once you've got them good and mad at you, you run away from where you don't want them. Lead them on a merry chase far from your team, or back to their base, or play hide and seek in an area with good cover, or **** off a couple of faster mechs and pull them back to your friends. When you're dealing with a 7v3 or 7v4 engagement your team will nearly always crush them quickly even if they're bads.

I second the dying part. When I started piloting my Jenner I did very poorly with surviving the entire match, and I didn't get a lot of kills even on games where I was dealing 300-400 damage thanks to hit and run tactics. Now that I've got some xp and more Jenner experience under my belt I live more often than not and it's not uncommon to get 2-4 kills.

There is no mech in MWO that is scarier than a really well piloted Jenner. Nothing.

[Hayashi]

knnniggett, on 11 November 2012 - 09:17 AM, said:

So I've read through this a couple of times and given it some thought. Like a similar thread I was participating in, this really helps identify areas where I can improve on. Here is my current JR7-D build: 245XL Endo Steel DHS (I forget how many) AMS 4 ML 2 SSRM 2 Jump Jets Max Std Armor Note that this build does not have enough critical spots for Ferro Fibrous. I like how cool this mech runs. I can group fire all 4 ML's quite a bit before I have to slow down my firing rate. An obvious weakness of this build is the smaller engine. At the time I switched to an XL engine, it was hard enough for me to keep from running into things at stock speeds. Consequently, I choose to stay at stock speed until I make it a little further through my learning curve. But enough background. I enjoyed watching how quickly you came up on that catapult in the video guide. I can see that your piloting is much more precise than mine. Your firing is much more reserved that what I typically do as well. You hold your fire until you are directly behind the mech. I've flagged that as something I need to practice on. Something else in the video is the lack of response from the rest of the opposing team when you started firing on that catapult. They likely weren't talking between each other which leads me to my question. Let's say that the other team's lrms started firing on you the moment you attacked that catapult. On one hand, as a scout you just succeeded at your job. You have successfully drawn the attention of half the enemy team away from your allies. On the other hand, you now have a big problem due to a change in weather pattern: 100% chance of an lrm storm. I know the textbook answer is to seek cover, but that is often easier said than done. Can you provide any specific details on what you might do in that situation? Any Ninja-like tactics one can apply? I think part of the answer is my choice of engine, but I'm reasonably certain there is more to it than just that. As always, I look forward to learning how to be a better Jenner pilot.

Actually, for all the space I'm devoting to builds, the more important part of it is the tactics part. The best build won't save the guy who stands still and shoots an Atlas in the face, and some of the best pilots can win even with a single ERPPC build. Thankfully it doesn't take that long to save up for a 300XL though. I've had to be more reserved on that particular video, since it was during the Closed Beta days, when there were no DHS. And that was on Caustic. But back then, SSRM2s also homed in on the centre torso all the time, so a video made now would be slightly different looking. As much as I don't like textbook answers, I'm afraid in this case the best thing to do is really to hide, with one exception - the missile boat you're fighting has nothing but LRMs, and can't hit you. If in that case, hide very close to the missile boat and let the LRMs do friendly fire for you, before running away after. If he has medium lasers or anything like that, just run. With luck they'll LRM you behind a few hills before stopping, and then you can come back from another angle and pull the same stunt again.

I didn't say this in the guide itself. Maybe I should later. But for one thing, if you disappear from one place, they're expecting you to reappear from that direction, so if you come in from a different direction it's often more effective. Especially on River City, where the buildings break radar contact like nobody's business.

Tuhalu, on 11 November 2012 - 02:40 PM, said:

Nice guide! Following are some corrections/alternate points of view.

• Ferro-fibrous only saves 0.8 tonnes on a fully armored Jenner. To make it 1 ton, you have to strip off 6 points of armor.
• The math on your LRM type is wonky. First you say it costs 6 ton for 2x LRM5 and 1x ammo. That is only 5 tons. Then you say you have 5 tons left, when it's only 4 tonnes left... I presume your build is actually 2x LRM5 with 3x ammo (total) and 4 small lasers. That would fit the tonnage.
• None of your builds include tonnage for Jump Jets. The rest of your guide talks about how awesome they are and how they make the Jenner better than other comparable mechs (not that I disagree that Jump Jets are really good!). You should probably fix that.
• 4 small lasers calculate as 2.9 heat per second. 4 small lasers with Cool Running at the basic level give 2.7 heat per second. 4 small lasers with Cool Running after you've unlocked Elite give 2.5 heat per second. You should give your heat numbers with regard to the Elite level because that's where a player is going to spend most of their playing time.
• Some maps run cooler than others... With 10 double heat sinks in your engine (currently equal to 20 singles, but who knows how long that'll last!) and Elite level Cool Running, you can fire your 4 small lasers on them for a very long time.
• Even if the game does hard limit you to 140kph, speed tweak is hardly useless! Having it means you can put in 275 XL engine and still hit 140 kph. This frees up another 1.5 ton to spend on equipment. Assuming you can afford the engine (and you should probably aim for it in the long term), I would get Speed Tweak before Quick Ignition and Pinpoint Accuracy.
• Opinion: I would get Target Info before Fast Capture. First, because it's a lot cheaper. Second, because base cap races only happen if people aren't even trying to fight. Otherwise bases tend to be defended well enough that the use or lack of Fast Capture is not going to swing the battle. Third, because knowing a mechs weapon load out and/or armor weaknesses sooner is very useful. You can't play smart if you don't know enough.
• A legged Jenner is only faster than other mechs if you never stop moving. Anything that slows your speed down (like using your Jump Jets!) at all will reduce it permanently at that point. It's some wierd physics bug they have going. Every mech is supposed to be reduced to 16.2 kph when legged.
• The benefits of TAG and Artemis IV stack. While you take a gamble with PUG groups knowing what to do, TAG is incredibly useful in an organised group with good LRM support (even just 1 guy!).

Thanks for that post.

• I'll correct the FF armour bit in the next revision.
  
• Yup. Another reason not to do math while playing another game. =P I'll correct that soon.
  
• All of them allocate 0.50 tons to a single jump jet. I'll add a note on the next revision. After it's finally patched 1 jump jet will be insufficient for flight. But it'll still be enough to break falls and JJ turns, which is all we need from it, so the build won't change even after that update.
  
  I hope it happens soon, the people saying that the 1 JJ usage thing is exploiting a bug are driving me nuts.
  
  All of the builds have XL 300, FF to 230 pts, ES, AMS ammo in head, AMS in one torso and one jump jet in the other.
  
• For now all of these numbers are before the influence of coolrun or Elite coolrun - I find 2:1 generation to heat ratio is a good place to be.
  
• For now since it's impossible to choose your drop map, there's only one heat profile we need to account for - the average one. When we can choose, then we'd start seeing hotter builds running on Frozen City, and the numbers can be tweaked. Still awaiting that update, but for now the variety of heat on maps doesn't really affect the Mechlab setup much... yet.
  
• Very true. I'll change that in the next edition. And probably do that very thing to my own setups.
  
• I suppose that's really more an opinion thing. Most of the time I don't really care too much about their weapon setups really, unless it happens to be 6 streaks, but that's just me.
  
• From my experience, from the initial point of legging, you're really slow. But after about 3 minutes of not dying, the speed goes up to half your max speed.
  
• NARCs be pretty useless at this point, but TAG is good if you have boats on your team. Not very useful for pugs.

Elddar, on 11 November 2012 - 03:21 PM, said:

So if your prefered Jenner-D fighting style is to sneak up behind someone, unload and go find another target, why would you not want to use 2xSRM4's (which you said was a bad idea, in another area) instead of SSRM2?

The SRM4x2 setup would do more damage in an Alpha, but then due to its heat and ammo requirements, it would reduce the fire rate of your lasers. In addition, the SRM4 would work only against stationary mechs, especially if your lag is as bad as mine (when I fight a 250 ping player, the total ping is 550+, which makes lag shooting on lasers difficult, and lag shooting on missiles impossible granted the missiles already have both a firing delay and a travel time. If you have sub 80 ping, that might work, but bear in mind your lasers will now have to fire less often as a tradeoff.

Grizley, on 11 November 2012 - 11:24 PM, said:

I find the SRM4s extremely hard to land on another light mech. If you're in a 2xSRM4 Jenner vs a 2xSSSM Jenner then you will lose. In my experience the 6x ML Jenner is the best for use vs heavys and assaults and the 2xSSRM build murders lights. Both are about the same against mediums. The Jump turn really is incredibly good. Maybe later when people get used to it they will stop chasing Jenners around corners so much but for now it's an EASY way to land a near guarenteed 30 damage on an enemy. It's also a great way to throw off direct fire weapons, from their point of view they see your jets flicker for a fraction of a second then you're off at a 45 degree angle from your original path of travel. In a PUG vs PUG situation a Jenner can give their team a massive advantage sneaking around to cap, or just closing in cover and hitting a couple of their assaults. Once you've got them good and mad at you, you run away from where you don't want them. Lead them on a merry chase far from your team, or back to their base, or play hide and seek in an area with good cover, or **** off a couple of faster mechs and pull them back to your friends. When you're dealing with a 7v3 or 7v4 engagement your team will nearly always crush them quickly even if they're bads. I second the dying part. When I started piloting my Jenner I did very poorly with surviving the entire match, and I didn't get a lot of kills even on games where I was dealing 300-400 damage thanks to hit and run tactics. Now that I've got some xp and more Jenner experience under my belt I live more often than not and it's not uncommon to get 2-4 kills. There is no mech in MWO that is scarier than a really well piloted Jenner. Nothing.

I'd venture that nothing's more scary than a well-protected LRM20 Artemis boat, but then again I'm a light mech, so...

And LRM20 Artemis boats are very rarely well protected for some odd reason.

[Tuhalu]

Hayashi, on 12 November 2012 - 03:17 AM, said:

Thanks for that post.

• I'll correct the FF armour bit in the next revision.
  
• Yup. Another reason not to do math while playing another game. =P I'll correct that soon.
  
• All of them allocate 0.50 tons to a single jump jet. I'll add a note on the next revision. After it's finally patched 1 jump jet will be insufficient for flight. But it'll still be enough to break falls and JJ turns, which is all we need from it, so the build won't change even after that update.
  
  
  
  
  I hope it happens soon, the people saying that the 1 JJ usage thing is exploiting a bug are driving me nuts.
  
  All of the builds have XL 300, FF to 230 pts, ES, AMS ammo in head, AMS in one torso and one jump jet in the other.
  
• For now all of these numbers are before the influence of coolrun or Elite coolrun - I find 2:1 generation to heat ratio is a good place to be.
  
• For now since it's impossible to choose your drop map, there's only one heat profile we need to account for - the average one. When we can choose, then we'd start seeing hotter builds running on Frozen City, and the numbers can be tweaked. Still awaiting that update, but for now the variety of heat on maps doesn't really affect the Mechlab setup much... yet.
  
• Very true. I'll change that in the next edition. And probably do that very thing to my own setups.
  
• I suppose that's really more an opinion thing. Most of the time I don't really care too much about their weapon setups really, unless it happens to be 6 streaks, but that's just me.
  
• From my experience, from the initial point of legging, you're really slow. But after about 3 minutes of not dying, the speed goes up to half your max speed.
  
• NARCs be pretty useless at this point, but TAG is good if you have boats on your team. Not very useful for pugs.

3. I'm looking forward to correct numbers for JJs too. Should be FF to 232 points. Otherwise I check you on that. Pretty much exactly what I do


4. Are you sure on your numbers? I got 2.9 hps for the 4 small lasers, not 2.7 hps.
I tend to aim for somewhere around 1.5 on the heat efficiency scale. Due to the wierdness with DHS, I'm not sure what actual ratio that is, but it suits my playstyle. Lower ratio tends to bigger burst, but then I also tend to overheat shutdown more often (harder to pace myself!).

5. Well, there is going to be an even number of each map. So, in my opinion, design should account for the possibility to wind up on any map. Personally, I try and go for where I can get at least 5 alphas on a hot-map before I need to pace to avoid shutdown, but I also try to avoid a situation where I have so many heatsinks i can fire forever on a cool map. Going outside of that tends to be bad as you could have have had another weapon and done more burst damage or not enough heat sinks and can't fire at anywhere near full effect. You are probably correct in that this needn't be discussed for generic builds though. It's more of an overall playstyle thing.

7. Yes, it's both an opinion and playstyle consideration. When there are 4 or 5 mechs in moderate proximity, I like to find what is mounting what before I decide which mech to call LRM fire down on (and/or who to run the heck away from!). So depending on whether your not you PUG more or group more (and with who), your needs may vary. Note that I don't actually stick around with 4 or 5 mechs all staring at me! Hopefully they are looking the other way while I scout them. lol

8. I wouldn't know about that as I have never actually lived much more than 1 or 2 minutes after legging. Sounds like it's a buggy thing that needs fixing either way.

Edit:
9. I was just reminded of this... TAG can be good even in pugs because the LRMs flying at your target will cluster more tightly... Meaning less chance you will mistakenly get hit be some >.>

Edited by Tuhalu, 12 November 2012 - 01:37 PM.

[Kiiyor]

Friggin awesome guide. I'd like to add my (situational) 2 cents regarding anti-Jenner tactics;

If you spot a Jenner (or any fast mover for that matter) silly enough to be circle-brawling someone on your team, time your shots to coincide with the scant few moments where said Jenner is moving directly towards/away from you. If they are moving predictably enough, you can even preemptively set your crosshairs up where they are going to be to minimise convergence and tracking issues and get a nice long contact burn with lasers.

Good for higher ping players like myself.

Having said this, most -good- Jenner pilots will avoid moving predictably.

[TheAuDoctor]

Hi. Thanks for writing this incredible guide. It's really helpful.

I've been following your guide and have done everything except DHS.

I was wondering if you think it's worth dropping 0.5t of armor to get CASE to contain the SSRM and AMS ammo?

[M E X]

Hayashi, on 10 November 2012 - 01:00 PM, said:

Welcome to the Intermediate+ Players' Guide to the Jenner!
...
2. XL 300 engine - this is a MUST. Between 2 light mechs of equal skill, the faster one almost always wins. Speed gives you damage per second as you travel to your target faster. It gives you extra survivability as you travel to cover/your friends faster when in trouble. It allows you to keep on the back of another light pilot and blow his rear torso to pieces. It is 1.5 tons lighter than the original Standard 245, which gives you enough tonnage for AMS. Make purchasing this your #1 priority.
...
Speed Tweak. Completely useless as the game client hard limits Mechs to 140 KPH. You're already travelling at 138.9 with an XL 300.
...

Looks like I have to upgrade my Rattlesnake to a XL 300 too, at least until I am able to get SPEED TWEAK.

To which engine can I downgrade AFTER getting SPEED TWEAK to stay at the hard limit of 140 KPH ?

MfG, MEX

PS: Currently I have FPS of only 4-7 because of a GeForce 8400 GS ... getting a better GPU for at least 25 FPS is my top priority

[Hayashi]

M E X, on 15 November 2012 - 11:15 AM, said:

Looks like I have to upgrade my Rattlesnake to a XL 300 too, at least until I am able to get SPEED TWEAK. To which engine can I downgrade AFTER getting SPEED TWEAK to stay at the hard limit of 140 KPH ? MfG, MEX PS: Currently I have FPS of only 4-7 because of a GeForce 8400 GS ... getting a better GPU for at least 25 FPS is my top priority

If you're gonna get a better GPU anyway, please get one that lets you go at least FPS 50. 25 is still too jerky to play properly in most Mech types.

107.5% X 129.6 = 139.32 km/h. Therefore, the engine to downgrade to is the 280 engine.. Similarly, if you pilot a Commando, your go-to engine will be the 200, and if a Cicada, 320 (unless you need the extra heatsink from from the 325 for a VERY energy intensive build with both FF and ES upgrades).

The 280 XL is 1.5 tons lighter than the 300 XL, giving you 1.5 tons more to play with. This makes its power equal to an Endo Steel upgrade, but without the 14 critical slot loss. The only disadvantage is that it has one less engine heatsink slot than the 300 XL - but that's a minor one, at best.

[Vosje]

Terrific Guide. I can't wait to try some new tricks.

One question though: What do you average on repairs with your builds? I'm holding of on buying the XL engines, as I hear terrible things about it. But can you tell me the real story? (It can't be that bad if you propose them as a first upgrade, can it?)

[knight-of-ni]

Vosje, on 16 November 2012 - 03:46 AM, said:

Terrific Guide. I can't wait to try some new tricks.

One question though: What do you average on repairs with your builds? I'm holding of on buying the XL engines, as I hear terrible things about it. But can you tell me the real story? (It can't be that bad if you propose them as a first upgrade, can it?)

I'm not in front of the game at the moment so I don't have any quantitative data for you. However, I have found all upgrades to be well worth it in terms of both benefit and repair costs, except for Ferro Fibrous armor.

I do not recall getting any repair bills I could describe as outrageous. If I had to guess, my repair bills range in the 20-30k range to repair a completely destroyed Jenner. I need to verify this.

Edited by knnniggett, 16 November 2012 - 05:10 AM.

[Hayashi]

XL300 + FF + ES = 70-80k if you die, IIRC. But I'm on auto-repair so I can't really say I'm paying attention.

You rarely die though, and if you don't I think it's about 20-30k.

[D0m1n4t0r]

Great guide. I personally run a Jenner-D with 2 SSRMs and a variety of lasers or tag depending on what I'm doing, if I'm pugging or premading. I just discovered a great build:

2 SSRMs with 1 ton of ammo
AMS with 1 ton of ammo
XL 300 (i don't have speed tweak or anything)
FF with 232 armor
Endo Steel
Double Heatsinks (one in the engine slot plus the ones in the engine)
ammo in the legs
2 Medium Lasers in each arm

Works great (for me) although you only have a heat efficiency of 1.09 but if you're good you can manage it, with 1 ton of ammo you only get 25 pairs of shots from your SSRMs which means i generally run out in the last 30 seconds or so of the match if I live, but the 4 Medium Lasers make up for it. You can put Small Pulse Lasers instead if Mediums but i prefer the range so i can do damage from further off, less likely to get hit, and i chain fire, EVERYTHING, helps keep heat low. The last match i dropped, I got 3 kills, 1 Commando who i killed amidst his teammates, a Catapault who i finished off that someone else crippled, and i destroyed another Commando although someone else got the actual kill for it, and i killed a Jenner who was capping, although a teammate was helping, i legged him myself (he stopped helping for some reason) and since it was legging i got a good salvage bonus. I killed the Jenner with my Medium Lasers because i had run out of ammo, but basically i just mash the mouse button firing all 4 lasers at once and took out one leg, then did the same on the other. did 400-500 damage and got 3 kills and assists on everyone else, although i think they dropped with one short.

EDIT: Note to OP:
If you fire multiple identical weapons you get a heat penalty, so say firing all 4 small lasers gives u X% PLUS another Y% since you fired them at the same time. so if you chain fire them and your streaks, you will generate less heat.

EDIT: number of heatsinks

Edited by D0m1n4t0r, 16 November 2012 - 01:03 PM.

[Gloobnib]

Hayashi, on 10 November 2012 - 01:00 PM, said:

• Speed Tweak. Completely useless as the game client hard limits Mechs to 140 KPH. You're already travelling at 138.9 with an XL 300.

Thanks for the guide. As a brand new player (less than 1 week in the cockpit), I am finding it hard to separate myth from fact here in the forums.

I have an XL295 in my JR7-D and with speed tweak my in-game speed shows as 146.8Kph. Does the in-game spedometer lie?

Gloob

[Tuhalu]

Gloobnib, on 16 November 2012 - 12:45 PM, said:

Thanks for the guide. As a brand new player (less than 1 week in the cockpit), I am finding it hard to separate myth from fact here in the forums.

I have an XL295 in my JR7-D and with speed tweak my in-game speed shows as 146.8Kph. Does the in-game spedometer lie?

Gloob

Pretty sure you actually can get higher than 140kph with speed tweak. It's probably not worth doing, but it's possible.



Speaking of myths, the heat penalty for firing more than one weapon at a time is a myth. There has been no official change that applies extra heat to "boated" weapons. There has been no thorough and correct player research done with regards to heat costs and dissipation rates that has shown this occuring.

On a mech firing 4 medium lasers at once, a player might observe their heat scaling rising by 26%, whereas on a mech firing only 1 medium laser, the player might observe a 5% increase. Many players incorrectly assume that the game charges you extra heat for firing all those weapons at once (5%x4 = 20, why is there 6% more heat?). Actually, in the 1 second it took for the heat scale to adjust, 2% of the heat created was dissipated. So the medium laser really costs 7% per firing (7% for 1, 28% for 4) and 2% of that goes away in the time it takes the heat scale to adjust (7%-2% = 5% and 28%-2% = 26%).

Another source of observational error is in the case of chain firing more than 4 medium lasers. You chain fire them and it costs less heat over time than firing them in alpha strikes! Surely this proves the heat penalty (they think). In fact, if you are chain firing medium lasers, only 4 of them will fire in a 4 second period because each laser waits until the last one has finished beaming (1 second duration) before firing. Firing in alpha strikes, you get 5 or more lasers firing every 4 seconds. So you wind up comparing the heat for firing 4 medium lasers on cooldown with the heat for firing 5 or more medium lasers on cooldown. Woops.

[Hayashi]

Gloobnib, on 16 November 2012 - 12:45 PM, said:

Thanks for the guide. As a brand new player (less than 1 week in the cockpit), I am finding it hard to separate myth from fact here in the forums. I have an XL295 in my JR7-D and with speed tweak my in-game speed shows as 146.8Kph. Does the in-game spedometer lie? Gloob

According to posts on a necroed thread in Closed Beta forums about a month ago, the ingame speedometer lies. It's annoying - otherwise I would keep the XL300 and go at full speed. Players with Speed Tweak and players without it have run side by side for an equal distance on flat ground before, and even though the XL300 user sees numbers higher than 140, it seems the server hard limits you speed at 140, so it's a number that has no actual ingame significance for now. Once netcode is fixed, this will probably change, but for now this seems to be the way things go.

If you wouldn't mind, it would be nice if you could get a friend without speed tweak on his Jenner and race him, and see if you can overtake him or not. It's always better to have additional confirmation, especially because the game is being patched all the time... but for now the best information I have states that the speedometer isn't being honest with us.

Still, as earlier posters have indicated (and which I will update when I can find time to), Speed Tweak isn't useless, as you can downgrade to a XL280 and get 140 KPH out of that, which frees up 1.5 tons more to upgrade your lasers with, or whatnot - making it a XP (and non-critical space occupying) version of Endo Steel.

Tuhalu, on 16 November 2012 - 02:48 PM, said:

Speaking of myths, the heat penalty for firing more than one weapon at a time is a myth. There has been no official change that applies extra heat to "boated" weapons. There has been no thorough and correct player research done with regards to heat costs and dissipation rates that has shown this occuring. On a mech firing 4 medium lasers at once, a player might observe their heat scaling rising by 26%, whereas on a mech firing only 1 medium laser, the player might observe a 5% increase. Many players incorrectly assume that the game charges you extra heat for firing all those weapons at once (5%x4 = 20, why is there 6% more heat?). Actually, in the 1 second it took for the heat scale to adjust, 2% of the heat created was dissipated. So the medium laser really costs 7% per firing (7% for 1, 28% for 4) and 2% of that goes away in the time it takes the heat scale to adjust (7%-2% = 5% and 28%-2% = 26%). Another source of observational error is in the case of chain firing more than 4 medium lasers. You chain fire them and it costs less heat over time than firing them in alpha strikes! Surely this proves the heat penalty (they think). In fact, if you are chain firing medium lasers, only 4 of them will fire in a 4 second period because each laser waits until the last one has finished beaming (1 second duration) before firing. Firing in alpha strikes, you get 5 or more lasers firing every 4 seconds. So you wind up comparing the heat for firing 4 medium lasers on cooldown with the heat for firing 5 or more medium lasers on cooldown. Woops.

He pretty much beat me to it. Chain fire does not lower your heat. It does, however, increase your chances of doing more damage on a lagshielded mech since if you miss with an alpha, you miss entirely, whereas if you miss with a chainfired laser (and use the damage indicator to see where your laser is actually hitting) you can adjust your aim accordingly to hit the Centre Torso/leg. I wouldn't say that there isn't a reason to recommend chainfire, thusly - but heat is not one of the valid ones.