51 replies to this topic

[Darknight99]

This is my mech,

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...b1b0616aa294f57

Its completely apparent that it needs help. I am person who doesnt like up in your face combat. Id rather help from a far. To be honest I dont move well in close combat. I dont want a complete missle gunship but, I dont seem to be doing the damage I thought I was going to do. I will lock on a target and fire and fire and fire while locked. what can I do to improve life with this mech


Well take all the help I can get based on my play style.

[DegeneratePervert]

Probably the best advice I can give is to get an XL engine. Move your "arm" missile hardpoints to LRM-15, and have both side torsos at LRM-10. Put ammo in legs, too, you're not going to get legged.

[HighTest]

Get Artemis for your launchers. Between ECM, lagshield, and the generally lousy spread of LRMs, it's hard to be an LRM boat these days. Artemis will at least keep your groupings a little tighter when you do hit.

+1 for XL Engine too -- since you're trying not to get too close, you can afford the risk. Plus it'll save space for more weapon and/or aiming systems.

[Lucky Noob]

First switch AMS and LRM Ammo from your Torsos to your Legs and remove the Case then.
Switch the ER LLas to an normal one .
Why that lonly Pulse Laser ?

You "NEED" an TAG so you can logg on ECM protected Mechs .
Then switch to the biggerst XL ENgine, so you may repositioning fast and stay near your Group.

[The Amazing Atomic Spaniel]

Mixing three different types of lasers isn't going to help. A single ERLL won't do much damage at range and generates a lot of heat. I'd suggest just using ML only (they are very light for the damage they cause) and reallocating the liberated tonnage to carrying bigger LRM racks so you can fire more missiles per salvo. Double heat sinks are often a good idea - nice to see you have those. Fit a TAG and learn how to use it. There is so much ECM out there that without a TAG laser your LRMs could spend an entire match as nothing more than ballast. Fit the TAG to an arm pod so that it fires from high up. That way you don't have to expose much of your mech above a ridge line when you use the TAG.

Recently, I've stopped using AMS on my mechs. People who boat LRMs fire them in such large numbers that it overwhelms the AMS. It might still be worth using if you dropped with an entire team of AMS-equipped mechs because the cumulative effect could actually become useful, but pugging you can't know in advance if that is going to happen. AMS is also pretty useless against SSRMs and SRMs because the missiles are only in flight for a very short time before they hit you. There are a lot of SRMs and SSRMs in the game at the moment.

If you re-focussed your design around LRMs + TAG and MLs you would have quite an effective design. You should easily be able to fit 2 Artemis LRM20s, a TAG and 4 ML.

Finally, LRM boats can be frustrating to use in MWO at the moment because of the way ECM works. I have parked mine and gone on to direct-fire weapons.

Good luck!

[Wun]

For PuG drops you need TAG so you can hit better.

To play an Assault with LRMs as the primary weapons you need at least 40 (two LRM20s or 3 LRM15s), the three LRM10s on your mech is not enough damage fast enough, most 60 ton LRM catapults carry at least that much.

Make sensible weapon groups that you can control.

Something like this: 4 Medium Lasers on left mouse button, TAG on right mouse button (needs held down alot), 3 LRM15s on another button (can even work as keyboard 3). Ammo moved to legs or CASE protected torso. Arm ammo hits destroy all the weapons in those arms, which is bad in this mech.
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...63954bbb4ac9cbc


The problem with an XL engine is that either right or left torso stripping will kill you. With the standard engine they have to pound through the thicker center torso armor or rip both your arms off to make you harmless. Think carefully about the risk before going to an XL.

Edited by Wun, 22 January 2013 - 01:13 PM.

[Darknight99]

I will be making the changes and probably also buying at cat at some point. I guess I was trying to make changes and they didnt seem to fly. I Admit i am a bit of a noob so ill be fixing this guy up like you suggested.


I wish I could handle smaller faster mechs but Im affraid id die to fast. Maybe its the mech but I get stuck and movement and vision gets impaired.

[IceSerpent]

Darknight99, on 22 January 2013 - 02:20 PM, said:

I will be making the changes and probably also buying at cat at some point. I guess I was trying to make changes and they didnt seem to fly. I Admit i am a bit of a noob so ill be fixing this guy up like you suggested.


I wish I could handle smaller faster mechs but Im affraid id die to fast. Maybe its the mech but I get stuck and movement and vision gets impaired.

I would not recommend an XL engine on a Stalker - makes you extremely squishy due to side torsos not having a lot of armor and featuring huge hitboxes. Other than that, pretty much what others have said - get a TAG, drop ERLL, drop AMS and its ammo, move ammo into the legs, and use some combo of LRMs plus medium lasers.

[Ryvucz]

STK-5M

Is what I would use for your variation of a long range support. Worst case scenario, you ask for a medium or heavy to back you up.

But if you don't rely on others, you would be better off keeping medium lasers.

[Loc Nar]

Here you go.

[Tombstoner]

Strip it and go full med lasers and srm4 or srm 6's then up the engine to 300 standard and pop 2x dhs as extra
add Artemus. i also like putting my ammo in the legs. people like to skimp on the armor there i don't. also keeping 10-12 point of armor in the rear. i might get shot in the back. i know i will get shot in front. moving the ammo will get you at least 2 if not 3 more heat sinks.no ams for now untill the ECM is fixed and live with not having the ams in a pug with no ecm.

[Darknight99]

I tried a few of the lighter faster mech's I had a bunch of fun even though I died pretty fast. I didnt feel like a complete sitting duck. I think I may run a trial mech to buy a medium mech... any suggestions? Remember I am not a brawler I do like to be at a safer distance!

[Elizander]

I'd just keep it simple with a couple of LRM20s, 2 Large Lasers, a TAG and maybe Medium/Small Lasers with the remaining two energy hard points (or SSRM2s if you go XL for extra weight savings).

Generally stick with LRM+TAG and Large Lasers then DHS with the rest for most long range builds unless you can plug in a Gauss there somewhere. If you can heat neutral 2-3 LLs then everything else is gravy. No need to fill up all the hardpoints if you'll just overheat.

[Grissnap]

XL engines in Stalkers is bad advice, particularily for a newbie.

Ryvucz's build seems a pretty good starter guide, though for some reason was not quite complete. I took the liberty to make some adjustments. I personally wouldn't run this, but it has what you are looking for and I am sure you will see improvements over your current build.

http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/mechlab#i=46&l=cd4786782b247e1779bee77fbc9c389a97797db9

[Shimmering Sword]

Oh gawd, the first reply says "put an XL in an assault mech", WAT?!? Never do this, my team breaks out in laughter every time we kill an assault mech with an XL in it, it's a massive waste.
Assault mechs carry a lot of firepower, but they should also be able to take a lot of it too, you need to be able to soak up damage in your side torsos without dying.
Also standard procedure when fighting a Stalker is to quickly shoot one of it's side torsos off to halve it's damage output. Putting an XL in a stalker turns this "half dead" point into a full kill.

[Grissnap]

Shimmering Sword, on 22 January 2013 - 11:35 PM, said:

Oh gawd, the first reply says "put an XL in an assault mech", WAT?!? Never do this, my team breaks out in laughter every time we kill an assault mech with an XL in it, it's a massive waste.
Assault mechs carry a lot of firepower, but they should also be able to take a lot of it too, you need to be able to soak up damage in your side torsos without dying.
Also standard procedure when fighting a Stalker is to quickly shoot one of it's side torsos off to halve it's damage output. Putting an XL in a stalker turns this "half dead" point into a full kill.

Mostly this.

For me its not so much as laugh as be really surprised they died so fast, chalk it up as an easy kill, and move on to the next threat.

[Loc Nar]

Here's a more reasonable novice 5M missileboat. [std275, LRM10 x5, MLas x4, DHS x17,TAG]

Edited by Loc Nar, 23 January 2013 - 12:03 AM.

[Grissnap]

LRM10s are the least efficient.

You can go 2 20s and 2 5s, have the same number of missiles for less tons and less heat (requires 2 more crit spaces).

Edited by Grissnap, 23 January 2013 - 12:35 AM.

[HitNRun66]

Having read everyone's responses with Smurfy Mechlab links I'd have to vote for Wun's loadout taking into consideration several comments by other posters...

- All same type of lasers is simpler to manage
- Avoiding the XL engine is a good idea for a new Mechwarrior, I need to edit some of my mechs to account for this

Also...

- Medium Lasers shoot more often than Large Lasers and in those closer battle you won't need the longer range provided by Large Lasers
- Don't forget to mess around with Weapon Groupings AND Chain Fire with your LRMs (and lasers). Chain Firing LRMs can be very disconcerting for the recipient of your missiles who continues to get hit by them second after second, and LRM15s pack a nice whallop

Stalker STK-5M by Wun (gonna add this oen to my Mech Library)

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...63954bbb4ac9cbc

[John MatriX82]

The build needs a bit of rework (how come so much less armor in the CT?! Maximize it ), here's my recipe:

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...299a327e179cc75

Supposing you don't have much money to spend on newer engines, and by keeping mostly what you like and what you have already, I've removed 1x AMS ammo, relocated ammo here and there in the safer areas, added a couple of SSRMs.

I recommend to use TAG in order to avoid buying ARTEMIS IV, which may cost and weight a little bit too much.
If you tag ECMed targets you won't gain much LRM concentration, but you'll be able to rain them with missiles anyway; if you use it on non ECM'd targets than you'll get a bonus in flight and concentration for LRMs.

Replace the ERlas with a normal one. You already have long range weapons (LRMs).
When someone charges, you can say hello with the 3 Mlas, the LLas and the dual SSRms; of course try to wash your target if you can with LRMs too, but use the build like a switch; when brawling (although you shouldn't) go with direct fire lasers and SSRMs, during long range overlap the LLAS with the LRMs.

The sweet spot for this build is in the range from 180 to 270, where you should be able to successfully land both LRMs and SSRms altogether, along with chain-fired lasers. Even ECMed ligths won't be happy to receive 30 lrms and dual SSRMs in the face and if you manage to land a full salvo of all your missiles, any lightmech should be and affordable target for your lasers, even if you end up being unable to shoot the SSRMs if you end up under their ECM bubble

Oh and please, avoid XL's on Stalkers; it's really a bad idea unless you want to go with long range and specialized builds, and relying on friends to cover you from closing by enemies. Whenever you pug alone in an Xl'd stalker, you're a dead mech walking.


With some more risky relocations and by ditching 1 LRM 10 and switching the other to an LRM 15, you can add 2 more DHS, a further SSRM launcher running cooler and ensuing more DPS:
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...c25976e962d8ca1

The dual ammo in the left arm are consumed after you fire off the first 360 rounds, the same is for the ton of SSRMs in the left torso, you should already have used it up whenever something is close to core your left torso.


I'm using my 5M this way:
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...588ea5a5bc1c5c5

I prefer some more mobility and lack of AMS.

Edited by John MatriX82, 23 January 2013 - 07:51 AM.