153 replies to this topic

[Orzorn]

Athena Pryde, on 11 January 2013 - 12:19 AM, said:

@Ozorn
Thank you for the offer. I might take you up on that when I have a fully customized mech up and running and completed the first impressions.

Delightful. Always happy to help new players out (even if they are as seasoned as you seem to be!).

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How exactly does Salvage work do you get a certain amount per kill or assist or damage done?

Salvage is based upon how much of the mech that is left after you destroy it, and based upon the actual equipment it carried. A mech with an XL will be worth more than a mech without one, because the XL is so expensive.

And remember, this is based upon how much is left intact to actually salvage. If you've got a choice between destroying a mech's legs, or destroying its torso, take out its legs. It'll leave its engine and other juicy parts intact and you'll reap the benefit. When a trial mech is available with XL, people tend to rake in a little more cash by removing its legs or trying for headshots, especially if they're particularly susceptible to such things, like the Awesome.

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Group chat should be more intuitive and have a chat window for your group. UI is pretty clunky as is.

Check out:
http://mwomercs.com/...mber-18th-2012/
and
http://mwomercs.com/...mber-18th-2012/

They mention upcoming updates, one of those being a new user flow and new and upgrade UI elements, so hopefully they address some of your issues.

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As far as group chat, I thought it only went to that friend who's name you click on the friends name. Will have to try it if I get a group of larger then 2.

I believe for it to go to everyone, you have to click on their names while the group tab is open. You'll see stuff like "SomeGuy has loaded into chat", along with everyone else, so you'll know if you're in a group chat. I believe, however, that if you go to your friends list and click on someone, that the chat is still private.

[Elkarlo]

For your Heat Problem:
The Stalker is the Hottest Mech around.

I suggest to get yourself as soon as possible an OWN Mech from your Cadet Money.

A Friend of Mine swapped instantly in a Com-2D ECM, and his earnings skyrocket.
He ended up after Cadet time with nearly 10M... with spending 2,5M on his Com-2D.

At your current Point i suggest swapping to the Raven-3L in few games.

Then the Cash will flow in. And you will drive a nice nasty Mech which is almost up to par with Clan Tech.
Quiet Agil good armed and equiped for a Light. But be aware everyone is going to hunt you.

ECM Scouts are annoying for the opposide Team, you will have an other Light ( most ccertainly a ECM Light) as enemy, but you do lot of spotting and Kill assist in them.

( And you should have played MW2: Mercs the best part of the MW2 Series.)

Edited by Elkarlo, 11 January 2013 - 12:35 AM.

[AndyHill]

For information on stuff and especially 'mech design, forget about the game interface and head to

http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/mechlab

and

http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/

MWO has its own special quirks in 'mech building, as you already noticed 'mechs are very hot and ECM is quite powerful. Also take note that there are no size restrictions for the weapon hardpoints so you might end up facing some rather surprising combinations...

[Johnny Reb]

Well from one who has been playing since CB(June 30). It took me a good 30 matches to get the hang of my first mech. Subsequent mechs obviously took less. The trial mechs are rotated and really if an ecm trial was avaialable before it is "adjusted" would make the game even more unbearable than it currtely is. That said, I love this game some call it a mmo and maybe when done it will have that. Now it is like TF2 (for me not a bad thing) and I have loved it since I started in June/July, in fact haven't been back to TF2 since. (which I played since open beta if you bought the orange box). So in short, I understand and agree this game needs more but the current game state still has me hooked.

[Herbstwind]

Athena Pryde, on 08 January 2013 - 12:26 AM, said:

My favorite mechs in previous games where the Summoner and the Timberwolf Pryde (jump jets).

Athena Pryde, on 10 January 2013 - 03:16 PM, said:

I prefered Summoner and Timberwolf because they were slightly faster and didn't require jump jets that weighed two tons. The advantage of 85 tons instead of 75 wasn't that much when you had to spend 8 tons for 4 jump jets as opposed to 5 for 5 jump jets and you were quicker with the Timberwolf and could jump farther.

Seeing what kind of mechs you usually prefer, I strongly recommend you to try your hands on a faster heavy mech at least once or twice. In general, in MWO higher engine values give a mech more agility overall (turning, twisting, acceleration..). Some variants are capable of equipping quite heavy engines, giving them speeds beyond 80 kph, which can be further improved by the spead tweak elite skill. In almost all cases fast heavy mechs require XL engines to carry powerful weaponry, making them kind of vulnerable, but higher maneuverability often is very good defense considering the maps we currently have.

Having only IS tech available at this point may not give you the tools to build something as powerful as a timerwolf but at least you can get close the feeling

One last thing : don't bother with jumpjets for the time beeing. They are nothing but disapointing at the moment.

[torgian]

OMG.

Athena, you have NO idea how nice it is for me to finally see someone call the Timber Wolf a freaking Timber Wolf instead of "Mad Cat!" lol. Gah. I hate it whenever someone calls that mech a Mad Cat for some reason. Same with the Mad Dog being called a Vulture.

Anyways, I enjoyed your writings. I think I played against you once or twice. Hope you're having fun

[Rakashan]

Athena Pryde, on 11 January 2013 - 12:19 AM, said:

As far as group chat, I thought it only went to that friend who's name you click on the friends name. Will have to try it if I get a group of larger then 2.

They are two different things because of where you pick the name from. If you are on the "friends" tab it is a personal chat. If you are on the "Group" tab and do exactly the same thing it goes to the whole group. Definitely not intuitive in my book.

Regarding salvage, I thought (unlike Ozorn) that it was just a percentage of opponent drop-weight in this instance. I agree that it *should* be what he describes but don't know if that is the case right now or not.

[Athena Pryde]

Hoping to get an update for the weekend at some point.

@Orzorn
I played the previous games quite a bit and I have friends like Belldandy who are really into table top so can help me with designs and things.

Thank you for explaining the salvage mechanics. So you don't actually get usable parts like in previous mechwarriors but you get a cbill bonus.

I tend to try and aim for the center torso and just core mechs. Not exactly great for getting the most salvage.


@Elkarlo
I don't really like light mechs that much as the 2 Clan ERPPC salute usually kills one outright or severely gimps it or did in other games.

I was looking at a thread that said the Raven 3L was the best mech but the Raven 3L is 5.8 million, Double Heatsinks are 1.5 million and the 295 XL engine is 4.8 million. Not exactly cheap. Build I was looking at is like 7.6 million for the Stalker. 1.5 million for double heat sinks, 700k for 2 LRM 15s and then some LRM ammo and 30k each for 2 Streak SRM2s. Might switch the Streaks for SRM4s but I find lights really annoying.

My target build for the Stalker 3F is here
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...bb05645bf6785b8
Discussion http://mwomercs.com/...87#entry1723187

I did play MW2 Mercs. It was great. Its what I expected Mech Warior online would be like a MMO where you were a rookie pilot fighting for a faction (House or Clan) or as a mercenary where you started with a basic low tech mech and had to work your way up earning money doing missions for your faction or as a mercenary.

I made a comment earlier about how the intro made me cry that the commander died and starting out in a commando was a little rough.

@AndyHill
Thank you already using the smurfy-net mech builder and its really great.

Johnny Reb
I'm giving this a chance, running the trial, till I can customize my mech the way I want it. Heat management in trials is rough and you get the same bad pick up group issues you have with any other game. Playing with a friend didn't seem to help as much as I thought it would given the 8v8. Platoons in World of Tanks can make a big difference sometimes.

@Herbstwind
Unfortunately the trials that are quick sacrifice firepower and I don't particularly like their load outs. The Centurion has the shogun LB10X and the Dragon has an Ultra Auto cannon without enough ammo with not enough back up lasers. I did give the Centurion a try will post more on it later.

I really miss good jump jets. Mech Warrior 2 and 3 jump jets really gave you a huge advantage.

@torgian
You been talking to Inner Sphere Freebirthers too much Their silly lousy targeting computers.

I am having fun. It is interesting for a beta. Could be much better as I'm noticing many things that need improvement already that I really took for granted in other games but this is beta so its acceptable to be missing them. It is really fun just to be piloting a mech again. Some of my friends won't touch beta software with a 10 foot pole.

[Dukarriope]

why must you pose the hard questions

[Orzorn]

Athena Pryde, on 11 January 2013 - 12:47 PM, said:

The Centurion has the shogun LB10X and the Dragon has an Ultra Auto cannon without enough ammo with not enough back up lasers. I did give the Centurion a try will post more on it later.

That Centurion is actually considered by many people (perhaps not you, of course) to be one of the better trial mechs, because it runs pretty cool and has a weapon of every type.

As for the Dragon's ammo, it does seem like very little at first, and even back when I started playing in closed beta, I tended to put 3 or so tons of ammo onto my mechs...but not these days. Once you get good enough to really aim your shots, I've cut down most of my builds that use lower caliber ACs to two tons only. Some use only a single ton of ammo, and I never seem to run out. Its all a matter of getting good enough to know you'll hit the majority of your shots. It'll come with time and practice, of course.

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I really miss good jump jets. Mech Warrior 2 and 3 jump jets really gave you a huge advantage.

MWO's jump jets were only recently brought down to this level. What it was, was that the jump jets, for the longest time, didn't need more than one for full effectiveness. Of course, this means everybody stripped all but one, and it let a lot of wild builds run around with too many extra tons. They finally fixed it last patch, but it turned out that jump jets are now very ineffective, even in large numbers, so hopefully they patch it soon and increase the effectiveness per jump jet, although I don't expect for them to be as maneuverable as Mechwarrior 2's jets.

[Bishop Steiner]

Athena Pryde, on 08 January 2013 - 12:26 AM, said:

Little about me. I played Mech Warrior 2, Mech Warrior 3, Mech Warrior Living Legends and the Virtual World Tesla Pods under the handles "Athena Pryde", "Athena" or "Lady Athena" My favorite mechs in previous games where the Summoner and the Timberwolf Pryde (jump jets). Maybe we played together at some point.

To star this journey we have to pick a mech to play with....

Lets see the current Trial Mechs and what we have to work with here.

Raven RVN-2X, Centurion CN9-D, Dragon DRG-5N, Stalker STK-3F thats it? What no Timber Wolfs or Summoner? Aww its only 3050 Guess I'll have to wait for those to come later when the Clan invasion happens in March.

I actually had to look up these mechs on Sarna to find out how more information like how much ammo and the full stats they had which wasn't listed in the in game statistics. That should have been listed in the stats in game so you don't have to go to a forum to look it up.

Mech #1

Raven RVN-2X
Engine: Standard 175
Speed: 81 kph
Weapon Loadout:
2 Medium Laser (Right Arm)
1 Large Laser (Left Torso)
1 SRM 6 (Right Torso) + 1 Ton Ammo (Left Torso)
Equipment:
12 Single Heat sinks
6.5 Tons Armour
Stats:
34 firepower
1.01 heat efficiency

Thoughts on the Raven RVN-2X:
Are you kidding me? Some heavy mechs like the Timberwolf go 81 kph. I am not really a fan of light mechs but if they don't run at least 90+ kph I'll pass. 12 heat sinks isn't enough to fire everything either. Plus Raven's are known for carrying ECM this one doesn't have it.

Mech #2

Centurion CN9-D
Engine: 300 XL
Speed: 97.2kph
Weapon Loadout:
2 Medium Laser (Centre Torso)
1 LB-10X (Right Arm) + 2 tons ammo (Right Torso, CASE)
1 LRM 10 + Artemis (Left Torso) + 2 tons Ammo (Right Torso, CASE)
Equipment:
10 Single Heat Sinks
8.5 tons armour (272 points)
Endosteel Structure
Stats
38 Firepower
1.05 heat efficiency

Thoughts on the Centurion CN9-D
Shotgun seems rather poor spreading out your damage unless your really close and if you are running up to shotgun you can't use your LRMS when your shotguning. Your Shotgun being in the arm is likely to be blown off. XL Engine seems like it would cut your life expectancy down considerably. This would be better if the LBX10X could actually select slug and cluster ammo like its supposed to. Pass on this one too.

Mech #3

Dragon DRG-5N
Engine: 300 Standard
Speed: 81kph
Weapon Loadout:
1 Medium Laser (Left Arm)
1 UAC/5 (Right Arm) + 1 Ton Ammo (Right Torso, CASE)
1 LRM 10 (Centre Torso) + 2 Tons Ammo (Left Torso, CASE)
Equipment:
10 Single Heat Sinks
10 Tons Armour (320 points)
Stats:
28 Firepower
1.22 heat efficiency

Thoughts on the Dragon DRG-5N
It is fast as a Timberwolf carries much less weapons though. Only 25 rounds for the Ultra AC-5 seems really weak sauce if you don't run out of ammo your arm is likely to get blown off fairly quickly. That leaves you with a single medium laser and an LRM launcher with no TAG. Pass.

Mech #4

Stalker STK-3F
Engine: 255 Standard
Speed: 48.6 kph
4 Medium Lasers (2 Left Arm, 2 Right Arm),
2 Large Lasers (Left Torso, Right Torso)
2 LRM 10 (Left Arm, Right Arm) + 2 Tons Ammo (Left Arm, Right Arm)
2 SRM 6 (Left Torso, Right Torso)+ 2 Tons Ammo (Left Torso, Right Torso)
Equipment:
20 Single Heat Sinks
13.5 Tons Armour (432 points)
Stats:
104 Firepower
0.85 heat efficiency

Thoughts on the Stalker STK-3F
How cute its a wannabe Blood Kite. Unfortunately it looks like a chicken. It does have a decent mix of ranged and close range weapons. Could use double heat sinks double heat sinks since its heat efficiency is quite bad and a TAG to help out the LRMS but its the best trial mech by far. I guess I will have to settle for the Stalker and start saving my Cbills for it so I can buy one and customize it to maximize the experience earned.

Mech Choice: Stalker STK-3F
In order to maximize the exp earned in trials this will be the mech I will be buying to make a mini Bloodkite.

Initial Impressions of picking a Mech:
Your options for a trial mech to play is really limited. It would be nice if they had more mechs to choose from. They really should just let you pick from any available stock variant of any available mech as a trial mech. If this choice is too broad maybe 1 variant of each mech available. Definitely have a varied choice with the different roles represented and at least 1 ECM varient. Then you would be able to try out various mechs and find one you like and earn experience in it before you buy it. The 4 choices really don't work if someone wants to play a fast ecm scout, sniper, or missle support. Why don't the mechs have stock double heat sinks? They did in other Mechwarrior games.

Comming soon: Complete rundown of games 1-25 (with cadet bonus) + (some grouped with friends some lone wolf) including gameplay thoughts, screenshots of endgame performance screenshots, videos.

Is there a way to attach pictures or do I have to host them somewhere? Videos I'll probably put on youtube when I have time.

I like what you are doing, but I gotta tell you, passing on the CN9-D is a huge mistake. The only downside if used properly is that it could use more ammo (what mech couldn't? Heck, you know as well as I that most stock Omnis run dry FAST).

But that LRM rack is a great tool. It might seem minor, but if you start the match on the fringes, lobbing LRMs on mechs with hard locks, you can whittle them down and support your team (even landing some kills with a little luck and coordination), then AFTER your LRM bay runs dry you move in with your lasers and LB-X. You keep circling and juking at top speed, keeping your left "shield" arm toward your opponent during cooldown, then torso swinging your lasers and AC to rake them as you pass (big slow mechs will HATE you), and exploiting earlier damage, you will cause surprising pain and turmoil.

On my non-founders account, this is my main mech, and I liked it so much when I was able to buy my own mech, and kit it out, all I did was add DHS and another stack of ammo. I average about 2 kills a good match in it (a good match being the ones where my fellow pugs don't all get killed in the first 30 seconds).

Used properly, this is one of the hidden gems of MW:O.

[Rebel816]

Centurions can be really fun, its probably the "best" of the trials anyway...its bigggest downside imo is the XL engine. yes it makes you fast and saves weight but makes you pretty vulnerable. centurions are nice as you can use the left arm as a shield, and even the torsos if you have a standard engine...and at the least youll almost always have your 2 lasers in the CT so you can keep firing untill your dead.

the lbx isnt as bad as it seems, you just have to be pointblank with it. at least the trial is fast enough you can close gaps with almost anything and hit their rear armor a few times and run away. id rather trade the speed for survivability and drop down to a std 215 engine, or you can fit a 245 if you still want to go fast while only packing a little less punch. you might like the AL variant if you buy your own, its pretty flexible and not ammo dependant. you can put a large laser or ppc in the right arm if you want some range or all med lasers and an srm if you want to stay mid/close range. even with an er ppc in the right arm managing the heat isnt too bad.

[Herbstwind]

The trial mechs change on a regular basis, so you are not stuck to your stalker forever. My suggestion was to maybe try the cataphract variants or catapults with a maxed-out engine at some point in the future (. There are variants of them that can at least equip jumpjets, but at the moment its not really worth sacrificing the tonnage (maybe there will be done something when the spider gets into the game).

Those heavies would give you an impression of how a timber wolf or summoner would move and feel in this game.
But watch out : PGI introduced some rather arbitrary engine limitations for each mech variant, so it would be wise to check the guides in this forum first before you buy a new mech. Because of these limitations you almost always need the elite speed tweak skill to get a mech to speeds above 80 kph and some variant simply are not allowed to get close to that.

Until then : happy stomping with the stalker

[Taizan]

It would be a great thing if a new player had one or even two stock variants of every chassis to chose from. I like this write up, although its a bit on the whiny-waaaah-I-want-clan-tech side. Welcome to the Inner Sphere Athena Pryde! If you need c-bills, maybe travel to the Hiring hall on Galatea, largest one in the Galaxy.

[Kargush]

A pretend Clanner who cannot use proper spelling, and even stoops to using contractions,

Cute, aff?

[Martini Henrie]

Well reasoned thread, I hope you start to enjoy the game a bit more when you get a mech customised to suit your style. It does make a big difference, especially when you get them elited up. I look forward to finding out how you get on in the game propper.

[Marcus Tanner]

I think this looks like a good account of the new user experience right now.

Well, except the part about comparing 3025 Inner Sphere mechs to a Timber Wolf. That part is pretty silly.

People should be able to play and enjoy the use of stock mechs, whether that be in a "stock mechs only" server or some kind of BV or matchmaker system that puts sub-optimal designs against other sub-optimal designs or weaker players.

[Poptimus Rhyme Wallace]

Something i noticed about the scoreboards, on 6 out of 9 games ( the speed cap one dont really equate in this ) you had Assist on every single mech targetted!
overall assist wise, you outperformed your friend belldandy, who i assume is more experienced?
This tells us that you are indeed skilled, and probably only held back by the trial mech and the getting uses to a new mech game.

[JD White]

Sorry if this has been already stated, but...

Why not try ALL of the Trial Mechs before your complete your 25th mission, and reach the end of your Cadet Bonus period? MWO is not Tabletop, nor is it exactly like any other Battle Tech Game. 25 runs with trial mechs should give you plenty of time to experiment a bit. Especially if they change those trial mechs around in a future patch. If you can run through all 25 missions before you invest in your own mech.

Then again, playing your OWN Mech, right NOW, and then dropping in any new Trials that come along in the future... Understandable.

[Vassago Rain]

I'll give you the most important piece of advise for MWO. Whenever anyone tells you about shield arms, centurions, 'it works for me,' mentions crit-seeking, or dragons, and how good they are but 'you just don't know how to use it,' ignore the person in question.

Edited by Vassago Rain, 12 January 2013 - 09:06 AM.