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 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 BrookM wrote:
I really enjoy it so far though, this'll be one I'll be playing in bursts to keep myself sane.

No! Obsess over it. Think about new 'Mech configs at all waking ours. Spend every minute you can playing it.

I'd rather take my time with it and play the odd mission when I get the time in the evening.

I will say that the second mission made me awfully cautious, as I did my first merc mission now and while I didn't get any damage, I kept expecting a crapton of locks to happen and missiles to core me at any moment.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
I just finished the 2-part mission at a certain planet a treasure map led me to. It wasn't too hard taking down the "surprise" trio of assault mechs. In fact, I did so well I had to choose which one I wanted to keep: an Awesome or a Battlemaster. I kept the Battlemaster, and the game still awarded me two of the Awesome parts. Anyway, questions about the aftermath in spoilers:

Spoiler:

So, I've got the SL-era Highlander with its cool toys. Do I get any more of those cool toys? Or are all of its parts irreplaceable? The pulse lasers I got to play with in that mission were fun, is there a chance to get them elsewhere?

Something I'm finding odd is that people talk about the Grasshopper and I'd love to get hold of one, but I've never seen any of them in any mission. Thunderbolts and Quickdraws for days, no Grasshoppers. By the same token, I've never seen a standard missile-Catapult, and I've only ever seen one each of the Black Knight or missile-Jager. Are they more likely to show up / be available to buy in certain regions?

 Elemental wrote:
Something I'm finding odd is that people talk about the Grasshopper and I'd love to get hold of one, but I've never seen any of them in any mission. Thunderbolts and Quickdraws for days, no Grasshoppers. By the same token, I've never seen a standard missile-Catapult, and I've only ever seen one each of the Black Knight or missile-Jager. Are they more likely to show up / be available to buy in certain regions?

I've seen people say they could be region-based, but I've seen no confirmation. The story missions mention that Victoria's mech (the PPC Catapult) is not often seen outside the Draconis Combine, but how true that fluff-statement is in terms of gameplay, I don't know. I've only seen the one Grasshopper and Black Knight in my current playthrough (and they're both mine now). I've seen several Jagermechs and Quickdraws, but very few Orions. Oddly, in my previous playthrough (didn't finish, restarted at about the fifth story mission), I didn't see any Jagermechs and hardly any Quickdraws, but tons of Thunderbolts and Orions. This was all still done in the same general area of space, so I think it really is just random.

Best advice I can offer is, as soon as you see a mech you want, focus on getting it. Kill all the other mechs as quickly as possible so you can focus solely on the one you want. Knock it down once, preferably twice (I do it with LRMs), to get the pilot injuries. Then carefully position yourself and use called shots to take out each side torso for two more pilot injuries. That's usually enough to get it, but you can also take out a leg to cause another knockdown for an injury.

 Elemental wrote:
Something I'm finding odd is that people talk about the Grasshopper and I'd love to get hold of one, but I've never seen any of them in any mission. Thunderbolts and Quickdraws for days, no Grasshoppers. By the same token, I've never seen a standard missile-Catapult, and I've only ever seen one each of the Black Knight or missile-Jager. Are they more likely to show up / be available to buy in certain regions?

I've seen a single Grasshopper, a single Cataphract, 2 Black Knights (salvaged both of 'em) and 2 standard Catapults.

By contrast I've seen numerous Orions, more Thunderbolts and Quickdraws than I can shake a stick at, and so many K2 Catapults that I have one in storage!

 Elemental wrote:
Something I'm finding odd is that people talk about the Grasshopper and I'd love to get hold of one, but I've never seen any of them in any mission. Thunderbolts and Quickdraws for days, no Grasshoppers. By the same token, I've never seen a standard missile-Catapult, and I've only ever seen one each of the Black Knight or missile-Jager. Are they more likely to show up / be available to buy in certain regions?

I've now beaten the game and have never seen a Stalker or Cataphract in the wild. I've only seen a single Catapult k2, and

I'm now running an Orion with AC20 and a bunch of medium lasers, no extra heat sinks, and the arms mods that give extra melee damage. It took a couple of missions to get working, and it's very limited in its battlefield role, but it's really fun to play with. The basic idea was to run up and alpha strike one target, then switch to melee in the next turn, dropping heat and losing the recoil penalty on the AC20, then next turn I alpha strike again, and keep the cycle going until all is death. The trick I've learned to make it work is when moving before your alpha strike you don't worry so much about this turn's target as you'll be at 90% to hit most of the time, but about making sure you'll be in melee range of next turn's target. This ploy is made even more effective if you have a pilot that lets you move after shooting.

Also, I have the first assault mech you get given, after the treasure hunt mission. I've rigged it to being pure death.

 Wolfblade wrote:
Ac20s are fun, but I personally am a fan of SRMs. For less weight you get more shots and damage. My crabs run 4 SRM6s 3 MLs and 1 LL max JJs, near max armor (reduced to the nearest full ton) and then max heat sinks. Current damage output of an alpha is over 400 damage and I don't even have max damage SRMs (one +4 three +2)

The advantage of AC20s is all the damage gets focused on a single location. You fire three SRM6 racks you'll do about 50% more damage, but it will be spread all over the target. The AC20 lands all 100 damage on a single location. So the AC20 works better against medium mechs where it might punch through with the first shot, maybe even taking a torso or a leg to cripple the target. But if the target is really solid the AC20's advantage is wasted and the SRMs are much better.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Elemental wrote:
Something I'm finding odd is that people talk about the Grasshopper and I'd love to get hold of one, but I've never seen any of them in any mission. Thunderbolts and Quickdraws for days, no Grasshoppers. By the same token, I've never seen a standard missile-Catapult, and I've only ever seen one each of the Black Knight or missile-Jager. Are they more likely to show up / be available to buy in certain regions?

The first heavy I saw was a Grasshopper, which I only managed to salvage complete because a lucky head hit combined with knocking it down a bunch of times so the pilot died in what was otherwise I really healthy mech. After that I saw an Orion, a few Dragons and so many Thunderbolts it was crazy. I don't remember when I saw a Quickdraw, but I have one I barely use so I must have faced a couple at some point.

I didn't see a Catapult for ages, until the mission against the Dropship. And I've just faced a couple of Jagermech pairs, one of the standard set and one of the LRM sets. The only Black Knight I've seen was in the treasure hunt mission.

I don't know, it seems kind of random for everyone, except for the millions of Thunderbolts.

The missile Jagermech is a scary thing. I make them priority targets.

I've salvaged two of them, and one of them I use in most battles (it's outfitted with 2 LRM15s and 2 LRM10s, plus the heat sinks to fire them for quite a while).

I think the different mechs are just a RNG issue. I didn't see any missile catapults for the longest time and then the last 3 missions have had at least one in each.

Got a Grasshopper a little while ago, fantastic mech, heats up like a sun but man when it gets behind a mech with its jump jets it will one shot them with all of the small lasers. It killed 3 mechs in three turns in my last mission after it got behind the enemies line and they didn't focus on it.

 sebster wrote:
The advantage of AC20s is all the damage gets focused on a single location. You fire three SRM6 racks you'll do about 50% more damage, but it will be spread all over the target. The AC20 lands all 100 damage on a single location. So the AC20 works better against medium mechs where it might punch through with the first shot, maybe even taking a torso or a leg to cripple the target. But if the target is really solid the AC20's advantage is wasted and the SRMs are much better

The disadvantage is if you miss, it's a lot of eggs in one basket. I think it would take a spreadsheet to see what is more effective for DPS but I definitely prefer LRMS + lasers. Good DPS, good knockdown, and a miss doesn't punish you so badly in wasted heat and opportunity cost. The only really heavy gun I used was the Gauss cannon because I think the recoil penalty doesn't apply*, it doesn't get that hot comparatively, and the highlander has lots of other weapons anyway.

Every time I made a build around PPCs or AC20s or what have you, I felt like they weren't really delivering what I wanted.

My Grasshopper is my main brawler. I went with medium lasers and max small lasers with a flamer in there for some spice. I would get in as close as possible to give them the business - small lasers are terrific pound for pound. I also think flamers are very effective.


*emphasis on think, I could be wrong.

Aaaaand Second Dekker died last night. A Demolisher launched two shells at him in the first round it was able to fire, and one hit his head, turning it into a chunky Dekker Salsa.

Things turned pear shaped after that.

DEKKER MUST DIE appears to be a theme of this game.

 Ouze wrote:

 sebster wrote:
The advantage of AC20s is all the damage gets focused on a single location. You fire three SRM6 racks you'll do about 50% more damage, but it will be spread all over the target. The AC20 lands all 100 damage on a single location. So the AC20 works better against medium mechs where it might punch through with the first shot, maybe even taking a torso or a leg to cripple the target. But if the target is really solid the AC20's advantage is wasted and the SRMs are much better

The disadvantage is if you miss, it's a lot of eggs in one basket. I think it would take a spreadsheet to see what is more effective for DPS but I definitely prefer LRMS + lasers. Good DPS, good knockdown, and a miss doesn't punish you so badly in wasted heat and opportunity cost. The only really heavy gun I used was the Gauss cannon because I think the recoil penalty doesn't apply*, it doesn't get that hot comparatively, and the highlander has lots of other weapons anyway.

Every time I made a build around PPCs or AC20s or what have you, I felt like they weren't really delivering what I wanted.

My Grasshopper is my main brawler. I went with medium lasers and max small lasers with a flamer in there for some spice. I would get in as close as possible to give them the business - small lasers are terrific pound for pound. I also think flamers are very effective.


*emphasis on think, I could be wrong.

Currently my standard Lance:
Kintaro with SRMs ++ and LRM 5 and +1 In/Sensor Lock pilot,
Grasshoper with Med Lasers++, Small Laser++ Mgs and LLaser++, +1 In and Sensor Lock,
one of two Battlemasters, one with PPC++ and med lasers, SRM, high guts for overheat and Gunnery, Bullwark, the other with LLaser ++ and LRM10 plus Med Lasres
and then Orion with AC10+, LRM10++ and Med Lasers.

All Mechs have near max armour and all ammo in the legs! So many enemy Mechs get severe damage with ammo storage in the torsos
Tend to go for Accuracy and damage bonuses with guns

May not be optimal but it works for me.

For story missions I swap out one for the special Highlander.

Mech rarity - only seen one Cat K2 in a story mission and only a couple of other Cats so took some time to get one. Seen a couple of Cataphrats, loads and loads of Thunderbolts, Orions and Quickdraws

I find it really annoying that the only orignal member I have left is Glitch - who's perkiness is slowly convincing me that she might be murdering people with knives when I'm not looking.

Can't seem to drop against assaults. No matter what mission I choose I just get more and more waves of heavies. I own two lances of heavies now and just want an assault to back up the highlander.

I've just lost Ariamaki on a certain mission where you get to fight an assault lance, then 4xheavy vehicles (two demolishers one 3xPPC and a LRM carrier) it's the only one mission I've had to play thrice and:

 ChargerIIC wrote:
I find it really annoying that the only orignal member I have left is Glitch - who's perkiness is slowly convincing me that she might be murdering people with knives when I'm not looking.

If you read her background, that's worryingly plausible.

I think my favourite standard missions are the "grab the objectives" ones, because they let me be sneaky. Two mediums distract the enemies, the Firestarter & Jenner run around and get the objectives. Finished one today where they got pulled out after two tense turns of digging in and trying to evade against a pile of enemy heavies while the Shadowhawk limped into the zone.

 Ouze wrote:
The disadvantage is if you miss, it's a lot of eggs in one basket. I think it would take a spreadsheet to see what is more effective for DPS but I definitely prefer LRMS + lasers.

AC20 does 100 damage. LRM20 fires 20 missiles each doing 4 damage, so that's 80 damage, and we can add another couple of medium lasers and two heat sinks to the LRM20 so they both have the same tonnage and roughly the same heat.

AC20 is 100 damage, all in one location, so that's enough to one shot punch through the armour in mechs up to around 60 tons. It's really good when it isn't just punching through armour but also through internals, so against a lot of vehicles and light mechs it is amazing.

But in everything else the LRM20 and med laser combo is better. It's more raw damage, 130 vs 100. There's no recoil penalty, and the lasers get a base accuracy bonus. The LRMs have lots more range, and can indirect fire so they're never out of the game.

This really makes the AC20 a specialist gun with a specialist role, while the LRMs and mediums are more a general purpose solution to most problems.

The only really heavy gun I used was the Gauss cannon because I think the recoil penalty doesn't apply*,

It was the first thing I checked, and yep, it doesn't apply.

Every time I made a build around PPCs or AC20s or what have you, I felt like they weren't really delivering what I wanted.

I find I have to work to get AC20s to work, while LRMs are a more reliable point and click gun. PPCs I've never had a problem with, except it can take a couple of missions to get the heat management right (there should be a lot more feedback in the mech construction on details like heat).

My Grasshopper is my main brawler. I went with medium lasers and max small lasers with a flamer in there for some spice. I would get in as close as possible to give them the business - small lasers are terrific pound for pound. I also think flamers are very effective.

Agreed on all points. I love my Grasshopper, and small lasers and flamers are awesomely effective. I love it when I melee a mech and then its the small lasers that actually score the final CT hits.

 sebster wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
The disadvantage is if you miss, it's a lot of eggs in one basket. I think it would take a spreadsheet to see what is more effective for DPS but I definitely prefer LRMS + lasers.

AC20 does 100 damage. LRM20 fires 20 missiles each doing 4 damage, so that's 80 damage, and we can add another couple of medium lasers and two heat sinks to the LRM20 so they both have the same tonnage and roughly the same heat.

AC20 is 100 damage, all in one location, so that's enough to one shot punch through the armour in mechs up to around 60 tons. It's really good when it isn't just punching through armour but also through internals, so against a lot of vehicles and light mechs it is amazing.

But in everything else the LRM20 and med laser combo is better. It's more raw damage, 130 vs 100. There's no recoil penalty, and the lasers get a base accuracy bonus. The LRMs have lots more range, and can indirect fire so they're never out of the game.

This really makes the AC20 a specialist gun with a specialist role, while the LRMs and mediums are more a general purpose solution to most problems.

The only really heavy gun I used was the Gauss cannon because I think the recoil penalty doesn't apply*,

It was the first thing I checked, and yep, it doesn't apply.

Every time I made a build around PPCs or AC20s or what have you, I felt like they weren't really delivering what I wanted.

I find I have to work to get AC20s to work, while LRMs are a more reliable point and click gun. PPCs I've never had a problem with, except it can take a couple of missions to get the heat management right (there should be a lot more feedback in the mech construction on details like heat).

My Grasshopper is my main brawler. I went with medium lasers and max small lasers with a flamer in there for some spice. I would get in as close as possible to give them the business - small lasers are terrific pound for pound. I also think flamers are very effective.

Agreed on all points. I love my Grasshopper, and small lasers and flamers are awesomely effective. I love it when I melee a mech and then its the small lasers that actually score the final CT hits.

The problem with the AC20 is it's damage to weight ratio is just terrible, and then gets worse when you factor in ammo. And if you're trying to get a precision hit on something (i.e. one shot the CT), level 9 of tactics grants called shot mastery which normally bumps any called shot up to a~66% chance for legs, 79% on side torsos, and something around 90% for the CT, and with a couple (two) comms systems you can very easily chain precision shots when you want to just kill an entire lance in a couple volleys. Alternatively, you can just maneuver to one side of a mech and fire that way, reducing spread, but not as much as with a called shot obviously.

PPCs are ok, their heat cost in general is a little high, I think closer to 35ish would suit them better. In my experience using more than one on anything below a heavier tonnage medium, or more than two below a heavier tonnage heavy takes up both too much tonnage and heat to be of much use, even with a split fire breaching shot.

 Ouze wrote:

My Grasshopper is my main brawler. I went with medium lasers and max small lasers with a flamer in there for some spice. I would get in as close as possible to give them the business - small lasers are terrific pound for pound. I also think flamers are very effective.

IIRC, SRMs are the best in terms of damage/heat, with MLs and LRMs following closely behind, but LRMs are easily the best for stability damage. In terms of damage per ton, the only thing better than an ML is the SL which is limited by it's range. After that It's SRMs (4 > 6 > 2).

Mostly taken from this handy resource: https://www.reddit.com/r/Battletechgame/comments/8evjzz/weapon_stats_and_observations/

As for the grasshopper, it's easily one of the best heavy mechs, if not the best.

 Ouze wrote:
Every time I made a build around PPCs or AC20s or what have you, I felt like they weren't really delivering what I wanted.

There's a tendency to 'boat' in BTech video games, where loading up on one weapon type at the exclusion of all else becomes the most efficient way to do things. In some respects that's true - I mean, I almost never go to battle without my quad-missile Jagermech - but as a long-time BTech player I try to avoid that even if just for fluff reasons (not that there aren't canon boat 'Mechs).

So in respects to not getting the most out of AC/20's and PPCs, I use them to be the opposite of what the 'Mech does. I have a PPC on something that's close range, so it has something to do on the way in. An AC/20 'Mech (not that I've built one yet) would have long ranged weapons to give it something to do on the way in. Yes, a fistful of SRMs is great up close, but I'd like my 'Mech to do something on the way in, so I have a PPC paired with a stack of SRM4's on a CN9-AL.

The game found today that scaring me silly ends up badly for the bad guys. Dropping double Orion, Battlemaster, Highlander on a mission where the heaviest enemy mech is 55 it's kind of abusive.

M.

Bagged my first King Crab. Mission was a standard battle where the enemy lance had 2 King Crabs, a Highlander, and a Stalker. The reinforcements conveniently showed up behind me (behind LOS blocking terrain, thankfully) which was no less than 4x vehicles. Fell back, mopped them up quick, then returned to knockdown city in front of me. I managed to successfully incap both King Crabs (cored the other two), but a 4/18 salvage and poor RNG meant I only walked away with the 4 King Crab parts that I chose.

So now I've a got a dual AC20+++ with SRM6+++ jumping Crab to maul people with. I'm sure it'll really shine on hot planets.

Wow, quite a mix there guys.

I find I am typically facing (3 skull) an Orion or 2, a few PPC Catapults, Missile Jagermech (yikes! only one never two), Quickdraws (my goodness many of them), Thunderbolts and scads of Shadowhawks, ML Hunchbacks and Dragons.

When the game gets nasty, they field a Cataphract or two, a single Banshee... almost every 4 skull mission... really?, even more Thunderbolts and the VERY occasional Zeus that fights to the bitter end (can I not get even one not CT destroyed??, self destruct device??, will need all knockdown ammo).

I have seen only once a Strider and bagged that guy.
Never laid eyes on a Marauder, Warhammer, Atlas or the fabled King Crab.

I am running with:

Strider-2xLRM20, 1xPPC (grabbed from surprise visit on a 4 skull mission, have not seen one of these since).
Highlander-"Fancy" version original loadout.and +50%Range cockpit equipment (upgraded to the ++/+++ version weapons where possible). (Treasure mission)
Highlander-1xPPC,1xLRM20,1xSRM6, 2xML. (Grabbed from some mission of a movie star in a fancy mech and you have to go through a bunch of bodyguards, hurt a fair bit facing some 2SRM carriers at once).
Awesome: 3xPPC with the 10% weapon heat reduction bit and +2 Hit Defense Gyro, +1 to hit Energy bit. (Grabbed in a 4 skull think it was a plotline mission, I have only seen this one heat reduction piece of hardware, it makes this mech about right).

These guys as a unit are just death, Highlanders to jump around and spot, durable enough to handle the enemy initial activation when spotted with the Strider to rain death on them.
The Awesome lumbers along and destroys targets of opportunity.

6 super long range energy weapons, 4xLRMs, and just enough short range powerful weaponry to finish off whatever made it close (Highlanders are usually my forwards so they use them quite often).

I feel it really "gimps" a pilot to pick the "lock" ability but has been handy for all these missile and PPC guys to take-out turrets at range.

I JUST got a Battlemaster and looking at 1xPPC, 1xAC20, 2-3MLs depending on how well I want to manage heat/armor for missions I think will be a bit more close range.
He is a deadly alleyway mugger.
I have always been a fan of them in the board games, not so much looking at them in the game, heat efficiency is really bad.
I just need to field him and see how it works out, I think he is a missed opportunity if decked out for long range.
I assume a pilot/guts warrier is the way to go: if not closing to short range he is not doing his job, durability is a must for his role. (I think split-fire is not needed, kill it dead since it is close).
Logistics would not be needed much due to the loadout so can focus on the more important stats.

Anyway, yes I actually have been "dreaming" of design, "just one more tweak", mech-bay repair/build upgrades are becoming a priority.

Thanks all for the shared experience!

 Talizvar wrote:

I have seen only once a Strider and bagged that guy.
Never laid eyes on a Marauder, Warhammer, Atlas or the fabled King Crab.

Until the Harmony Gold Lawsuit issue is settled, you're unlikely to see them, sadly. The Atlas and the K Crab, however...

 Talizvar wrote:
I have seen only once a Strider and bagged that guy

Strider? Do you mean a Stalker, or a Cicada?

Or maybe a Locust? TBH I get the Cicadas and Locusts confused all the time.


both are super common though so must be a Stalker.

People have questioned if Light 'Mechs are useful.

I'd argue they are, in sufficient numbers. When you can only bring 4 to the battle, no, there's not much point. But when you can bring 6-8 of them, mixed in with 2-4 mediums, then they become useful.

Having to get 1-2 heavies dealing with an entire Lance of lights is annoying. Getting swarmed by 8 units that all move before you is annoying. It's even more annoying when a few of them are Locust M's and they keep bombarding you from out of LOS, or when it's a base defence mission and they ignore you in favour of the buildings.

If the expansion/sequel allows us to field a second lance, then Lights could be useful. Then they could be used as scouts/spotters for all the bigger things.

Lot of talk about company scale modding. I knew from the outset that would come as Harebrained were just flat out wrong to restrict action to four mechs. It's not the correct number, it's not the sweet spot and a modded Leopard can carry six, and the modding can be paced out like with the Argo.

I want to see company scale multiplayer, then in order to fill out you will likely need lights and the full range of mechs will come into play naturally.

Otherwise its just a race to build the best assault lance.

 Orlanth wrote:
Lot of talk about company scale modding. I knew from the outset that would come as Harebrained were just flat out wrong to restrict action to four mechs. It's not the correct number, it's not the sweet spot and a modded Leopard can carry six, and the modding can be paced out like with the Argo.

I want to see company scale multiplayer, then in order to fill out you will likely need lights and the full range of mechs will come into play naturally.

Otherwise its just a race to build the best assault lance.

I wonder if the modding community would be able to improve on that.

Given time, I am certain it will come.

The main hope is that the game developers will realise Battletech players have more patience than most gamerz and can handle eight or more units a turn without getting bored.

I think company level skirmishes might be out, but that's just me.