I need someone to help me understand the mech build menu it is stupidly unintuitive. All I want to do it build a medium mech with 11ty million machineguns.
This game makes me hyper excited for Hawken in December.
I need someone to help me understand the mech build menu it is stupidly unintuitive. All I want to do it build a medium mech with 11ty million machineguns.
This game makes me hyper excited for Hawken in December.
When you go into configure mech, on the upper right is the mech outline with dots indicating the locations you can place equipment. Clicking on a dot changes the location (you can also just click on the model in the center). In the center to the right of the model is the list of critical slots in that location. Above those it lists the hardpoints in that section. For example 0/1 energy, 1/3 missile. That means you can place up to 1 energy weapon and 3 missile weapons in that location in any combination as long as you have the critical slots and tonnage available. The tonnage and critical slots a weapon or equipment has is listed in the info section for that device. In the list along the right side are the equipment catagories. Click the icon above to choose weapons, ammo, equipment, or armor. Drag what you want out of that list and into the location to a free slot to equip it. Anything in red means it's either too heavy, too many critical slots, or there's not enough hardpoints to be fitted.
Ballistic hardpoints are pretty limited so making a MG boat is not easy to do and isn't very effective since they don't do much against armor and they haven't got the criticals to internals in yet.
SiliconStew on
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
I need someone to help me understand the mech build menu it is stupidly unintuitive. All I want to do it build a medium mech with 11ty million machineguns.
This game makes me hyper excited for Hawken in December.
You can't, that's probably why you're having a hard time. The hardpoint system explicitly prevents you from stacking large numbers of small weapons. The best you can do in the medium class is 3 machine guns in the Hunchback HBK-4G's right torso, or the Centurion CN9-AH's right arm.
Good Lord, I'm terrible at this game. I bought the mid-grade veteran deal, and picked a Catapult thinking I'd hang back. That doesn't work: I constantly get assraped by Jenners. If not, then I spend the whole round launching missile salvos that never seem to do much damage. I took off 2 medium lasers and tried LRM20s. That was a mistake: I just went out of ammo quicker.
So then I tried a standard hunchback (though I swapped out the small laser for some CASE, thinking that long range might not be my thing. Still no luck: even with a few solid AC20 hits to the face I don't seem to do much except expload myself as I run head first into an Atlas half the fucking time.
I know it's just my utter lack of skill, so what basic pointers do you all have for me? Italianranma is my pilot name as well, if you want to add me to your friend's list *hint *hint.
Your issues as a Catapult stem from poor teamwork, you should play with PA players a bit. You need to coordinate your LRM target with people - it'll peel off armor so they can melt through that delicious internal structure. Also they can keep Jenners off your ass. The Founder's Cat is actually poor for LRM boating though, but it can be a powerhouse with 2xSRM6 and 4xMLAS. I run that with an XL285 engine, it's good times. Make sure to check your armor as well, the base loadout is super squishy.
For the Hunchback... the 4G sucks. Remember that you can't facetank an assault mech - you're more maneuverable than they are, use that. Try putting a Gauss rifle in there and sniping a bit. Try different tactics.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited August 2012
LRM-focused mechs are basically the most team-dependent builds right now, by a wide margin. The mechs that can carry stacks of LRMs aren't very fast and LRMs have a pretty huge minimum range (180m), so they tend to be pretty vulnerable inside the range that most mechs are most effective within. When I'm playing Jenner, mediums, heavies, and wary assaults are all serious trouble for me, but an LRM mech is basically a big fat target; their armament for dealing with me is generally going to suck, and I nullify most of their firepower just be being close to them.
Mechs like the Centurion are intended to help support LRM mechs by adding a little LRM firepower and keeping lights away from them, but that almost never happens due to the lack of tonnage limits right now. Also, the huge overabundance of assaults nullifies a lot of the usefulness of LRMs right now; LRMs can do tons of damage to an assault, but there's a lot less usefulness there when a team has another 3-4 assaults as well.
LRMs are going to go way, way up in effectiveness when tonnage limits are put in place, but until then they've got something of the short end of the stick. They can still do loads of damage and be useful, but between the excess of armor on the field and the overabundance of massively-powerful assault arsenals, LRMs really don't get to be as good as they should.
I couldn't sleep, especially after doing nothing else but contribute to other people's XP, so I stayed up way to late playing this game. I kept rotating between the Hunchback and Catapult, and gradually I was able to see a bit of a learning curve. It started with not dying a few times (though the first of which I tried to solo a Catapult as the Hunchback, and ended up getting to him with only one laser intact only to lose it seconds later). Eventually I was able to get a few kills as the hunchback, usually crippled beyond belief at the end of the game. Finally I did a round as a Catapult where I ended up #2 for damage, legged a Jenner with mah laza', and soloed a rival Catapult. It was about 0500 my time at this point and I decided to call it a night.
I still can't seem to get behind other mechs as the hunchback. And I tend to get into these weird situations where my torso won't turn quickly enough for circle strafing even against heavy mechs, but my arm reticule is all over the freaking place. Do you guys tend to fight at full throttle? It seems like there's a certain art form to getting behind the Atlas that I haven't been able to figure out yet.
Oh yeah, and while the AC20 does noticeable damage, I tried switching to a AC10 which had something like 4 times the ammo, and I couldn't kill a single Catapult with it. Are the ACs balanced properly? It seems like pound for pound I should just invest in SRMs instead.
The answer is be faster than them by a hefty margin. I have a 300 xl engine in my hunch and I just blow past people and poke em in the butt.
Not really. The Hunchback is kinda slow, but very agile. I can quite often get the jump on people easily even with a stock engine, the trick is just using the terrain and paying attention to the fight flow. I'll rarely approach a bigger target than me head-on. Usually I duck out of the fight, swing back around, and hit them from a flanking angle.
Do you guys tend to fight at full throttle?
Nope. The faster you're going the harder it is to turn so you need to manage your throttle in order to keep from getting away from your target. Once you're setup where you want to be, lowering your throttle will make it easier to stay on a target's ass.
EDIT: My whoring of RAMMING SPEED on the Dragon is starting to get people super salty in games. Best mech evaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
TOGSolid on
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Oh yeah, and while the AC20 does noticeable damage, I tried switching to a AC10 which had something like 4 times the ammo, and I couldn't kill a single Catapult with it. Are the ACs balanced properly? It seems like pound for pound I should just invest in SRMs instead.
Yeah, the ballistic weapons in general are still pretty crappily unbalanced. The gauss rifle does pretty well and the UAC/5 currently has an incomplete feature which makes it crazy good (you can double-fire per single reload with no drawbacks, but they're going to patch in jamming for it at some point). The standard ACs are kinda junk compared to basically everything else, and the machine guns are definitely junk.
The ballistic weapons are in a tough spot because the devs seem pretty reluctant to adjust their damage values, which isn't necessarily a bad idea. However, they've got a crappy damage-per-ton-ammo (SRMs get something like 250 damage per ton, ballistic weapons get something like 150 at best), pretty enormous weight for the damage they deal (4 MLAS deals as much damage as an AC/20, fits on most mechs, never runs out of ammo, takes only 4 crit slots, etc. etc.), huge crit slot costs (AC/20 takes up something like 13-14 crit slots), AND they get hurt really bad by the random firing lag caused by the in-progress netcode.
So far, ballistic weapons have seen 1 second shaved off their firing time (except for the UAC/5) and a 25% boost to their ammo, but they still need a good bit of work.
+3
grouch993Both a man and a numberRegistered Userregular
Wonder if they will support fun stuff like skidding or flooding sections.
The answer is be faster than them by a hefty margin. I have a 300 xl engine in my hunch and I just blow past people and poke em in the butt.
A fast Hunchback (HunchBlast? LunchFast?) is the best anti-scout platform I've encountered so far. Except for lucky shots from Gaussapults, they're the thing I'm the most wary of when I'm scouting. I've had to bail on many a base cap attempt because there's a fast Hunch on the prowl nearby.
LRMs are going to go way, way up in effectiveness when tonnage limits are put in place, but until then they've got something of the short end of the stick.
This is a very scary thought - considering the insane amount of chassis rock you get from landing a single LRM on someone, the idea of them being even more effective should give people pause.
I would really like to know the internal mechanics of deciding how many LRMs in a volley hit - anyone know if they're using some sort of system similar to the TT version where it's a random amount of hits?
"Sometimes things aren't complicated," I said. "You just have to be willing to accept the absolute corruption of everybody involved."
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grouch993Both a man and a numberRegistered Userregular
A scout with MASC running about tackling stuff used to be fun during the tabletop sessions. All those crits after the slam. Of course, the legs locking wasn't much fun.
EDIT: My whoring of RAMMING SPEED on the Dragon is starting to get people super salty in games. Best mech evaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
I'm finding ramming lights to be my normal method of dealing with them. It's too fun and I hope that function still exists in the full release.
I've gotten the hang of ramming everything up to and including Atlases.
Beyond just making people mad, it's really handy for saving the bacon of your teammates. I saved a few LRM boats yesterday just by tackling the mechs going after them.
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CarbonFireSee youin the countryRegistered Userregular
Right now, ramming seems like the only thing the Dragon is really good at :P
EDIT: My whoring of RAMMING SPEED on the Dragon is starting to get people super salty in games. Best mech evaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
I'm finding ramming lights to be my normal method of dealing with them. It's too fun and I hope that function still exists in the full release.
Hopefully the fact that it's already in before they even add a lot of the core gameplay stuff (information warfare etc.) shows that they see it as integral.
Right now, ramming seems like the only thing the Dragon is really good at :P
Pfft, I do plenty fine in it. My loadout gets shit done all ranges and the Dragon's super awesome stock speed makes it really good at flanking and swooping in like the goddamn Batman to save the day.
The answer is be faster than them by a hefty margin. I have a 300 xl engine in my hunch and I just blow past people and poke em in the butt.
Not really. The Hunchback is kinda slow, but very agile. I can quite often get the jump on people easily even with a stock engine, the trick is just using the terrain and paying attention to the fight flow. I'll rarely approach a bigger target than me head-on. Usually I duck out of the fight, swing back around, and hit them from a flanking angle.
What are you talking about? The Hunchback can go 120kph, how is that slow at all? Thats one of the fastest boats in the game. Also, I almost always fight at full throttle in one, unless I have perfectly sure there is no one besides the main target that will be shooting at me or I'm fighting 1on1.
The answer is be faster than them by a hefty margin. I have a 300 xl engine in my hunch and I just blow past people and poke em in the butt.
Not really. The Hunchback is kinda slow, but very agile. I can quite often get the jump on people easily even with a stock engine, the trick is just using the terrain and paying attention to the fight flow. I'll rarely approach a bigger target than me head-on. Usually I duck out of the fight, swing back around, and hit them from a flanking angle.
What are you talking about? The Hunchback can go 120kph, how is that slow at all? Thats one of the fastest boats in the game. Also, I almost always fight at full throttle in one, unless I have perfectly sure there is no one besides the main target that will be shooting at me or I'm fighting 1on1.
He speaks of the stock standard engine 200 hunchback which moves at about 66 KPH, which is kinda slow.
There's absolutely no reason to play a hunchback with a stock engine. Awesomes can go faster than 66kph. If your hunchy isnt built for speed then go awesome.
There's absolutely no reason to play a hunchback with a stock engine. Awesomes can go faster than 66kph. If your hunchy isnt built for speed then go awesome.
Because a stock engine hunchback carries a ton of firepower, is able to mix it up really well thanks to its agility, and not all of us here are horrible people that like abusing the broken as fuck, boring to use Awesome? Besides, once tonnage restriction get put it guys who exclusively whore assault mechs are gonna be hurting because they won't know how to drive the smaller guys properly.
Sure there is. You can't fit an AC/20 in a hunchback with an XL engine.
The 4SP and Swayback are both really awesome mechs too.
There's absolutely no reason to play a hunchback with a stock engine. Awesomes can go faster than 66kph. If your hunchy isnt built for speed then go awesome.
Because I don't want to die when my RT blows up? And while the AWS-8Q can handle running a standard 325 engine and still be somewhat effective (30 HS is cutting it close, IMO, but YMMV) the other variants really can't. And I avoid putting an XL in an assault mech.
There's absolutely no reason to play a hunchback with a stock engine. Awesomes can go faster than 66kph. If your hunchy isnt built for speed then go awesome.
Because I don't want to die when my RT blows up? And while the AWS-8Q can handle running a standard 325 engine and still be somewhat effective (30 HS is cutting it close, IMO, but YMMV) the other variants really can't. And I avoid putting an XL in an assault mech.
The Lunchback is the only great hunchy, the Munchback is ok too, but has some issues. The other builds are much worse, and theres no reason to use them other than grinding master. The second you give up speed in the hunchy you are playing a bad Awesome, and you should switch. I didn't design the mechs, that's just the way it is.
The second you give up speed in the hunchy you are playing a bad Awesome, and you should switch. I didn't design the mechs, that's just the way it is.
I don't drive Awesomes or Atlases because I find them to be astoundingly boring and I do perfectly well. Trying to tell people they're doing it wrong just because they're not using the current beta only FOTM broken shit is a crappy attitude to have. The Hunchback can lay down a ton of hurt without being turned into a down syndrome scout mech.
The Lunchback is the only great hunchy, the Munchback is ok too, but has some issues.
Honestly I have no trouble with my xl engine hunch vis-a-vis exploding. If something is scary and can do a lot of damage to me, I run at 100 kph around him like a jerk. If it isn't then I tackle it and kick dirt on its nerd glasses.
Just picked this up yesterday and finally getting through some battles after being completely worthless for the first dozen rounds.
Does the game balance rounds as far as scout/med/heavy like World of Tanks? I've seen some pretty lopsided matches.
The TT version uses something called Battle Value to assess how much a mech is worth on the field. Tonnage, armor, weapons etc are all given a point value and then added up. I hope they decide to implement this as well although I wonder how it will sit with matchmaking. Right now the beta is great because you can get a match instantly. I don't want to know that I'm going to get a faster game if I pick a smaller mech because the numbers work out better.
They need to stay away from pure tonnage as a meter, though. That's very misleading especially when you start getting overlap in the same tonnage number.
"Sometimes things aren't complicated," I said. "You just have to be willing to accept the absolute corruption of everybody involved."
Just picked this up yesterday and finally getting through some battles after being completely worthless for the first dozen rounds.
Does the game balance rounds as far as scout/med/heavy like World of Tanks? I've seen some pretty lopsided matches.
The TT version uses something called Battle Value to assess how much a mech is worth on the field. Tonnage, armor, weapons etc are all given a point value and then added up. I hope they decide to implement this as well although I wonder how it will sit with matchmaking. Right now the beta is great because you can get a match instantly. I don't want to know that I'm going to get a faster game if I pick a smaller mech because the numbers work out better.
They need to stay away from pure tonnage as a meter, though. That's very misleading especially when you start getting overlap in the same tonnage number.
I think BV would be the best way to balance, in my honest opinion. But some kind of balancing would be better than none, as it's hard as hell to defeat a team made of 5 Awesome's, specced as laser boats charging straight for the cap point.
The second you give up speed in the hunchy you are playing a bad Awesome, and you should switch. I didn't design the mechs, that's just the way it is.
I don't drive Awesomes or Atlases because I find them to be astoundingly boring and I do perfectly well. Trying to tell people they're doing it wrong just because they're not using the current beta only FOTM broken shit is a crappy attitude to have. The Hunchback can lay down a ton of hurt without being turned into a down syndrome scout mech.
A Hunchback without a big XL engine is basically food for a coordinated group of assaults (or even a single assault that does have a big XL engine, or another Hunchback that has one). You may be able to do well in a stock 4G, but that doesn't make it good in relation to other options, just effective against sucky PUG teams.
Obviously everyone should feel free to play whatever they enjoy, especially in random matches where there are no stakes and opposition will be minimal. If you want to actually compare 'Mechs to each other in terms of their utility in a competitive environment, though, the fact is that the game is currently trending pretty hard towards assaults as the dominant choice for anything that's going slower than 120kph, and towards XL engines on everything in most cases.
On the bright side, the devs have stated pretty strongly that they intend to keep all weight classes viable. The fact that fast Awesomes are competitive with, and maybe even preferred to, Atlases is actually a good sign in my eyes. Although that has a lot to do with their hardpoint layouts as well as their speed and maneuverability, to be fair.
The Lunchback is the only great hunchy, the Munchback is ok too, but has some issues.
Wut?
Laser Hunchback and Missile Hunchback respectively. 375 XL and all the small lasers (or SRM-6s, depending) you can fit.
Supraluminal on
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FaranguI am a beardy manWith a beardy planRegistered Userregular
A Hunchback without a big XL engine is basically food for a coordinated group of assaults (or even a single assault that does have a big XL engine, or another Hunchback that has one). You may be able to do well in a stock 4G, but that doesn't make it good in relation to other options, just effective against sucky PUG teams.
Obviously everyone should feel free to play whatever they enjoy, especially in random matches where there are no stakes and opposition will be minimal. If you want to actually compare 'Mechs to each other in terms of their utility in a competitive environment, though, the fact is that the game is currently trending pretty hard towards assaults as the dominant choice for anything that's going slower than 120kph, and towards XL engines on everything in most cases.
It's trending that way entirely because of the lack of any real matchmaking. People like me that aren't being a giant cheesecock are going to be laughing their asses off once these retarded all Assault teams go away because all those pilots aren't going to have a clue what to do or how to play the game. This isn't a competitive environment in the slightest and anyone treating BETA like one needs to be kicked in the dick as hard as possible.
A Hunchback without a big XL engine is basically food for a coordinated group of assaults (or even a single assault that does have a big XL engine, or another Hunchback that has one). You may be able to do well in a stock 4G, but that doesn't make it good in relation to other options, just effective against sucky PUG teams.
Obviously everyone should feel free to play whatever they enjoy, especially in random matches where there are no stakes and opposition will be minimal. If you want to actually compare 'Mechs to each other in terms of their utility in a competitive environment, though, the fact is that the game is currently trending pretty hard towards assaults as the dominant choice for anything that's going slower than 120kph, and towards XL engines on everything in most cases.
It's trending that way entirely because of the lack of any real matchmaking. People like me that aren't being a giant cheesecock are going to be laughing their asses off once these retarded all Assault teams go away because all those pilots aren't going to have a clue what to do or how to play the game. This isn't a competitive environment in the slightest and anyone treating BETA like one needs to be kicked in the dick as hard as possible.
I don't agree with much in this thread, but this...This I find to be truth.
Anyone who is giving an actual fuck (outside of fun factor) about this games stats or their "skill" before it receives the "no more wipes" stamp, is a bad person and should feel bad.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Yeah, assaults are only dominant right now because there's no sort of common-sense limits to what teams can consist of. Even when organized, fighting against a wall of assaults has a rather strong chance of resulting in failure if you aren't fielding at least a similar weight of mechs.
The amount of bitching when tonnage limits get put in place is going to be epic, simply because people will actually have to make hard choices regarding their loadout and role instead of just stacking their mech and team with the most weapon-laden mechs they can. An Awesome running 3-4 SRM-6s is pretty much a death sentence to a mixed-loadout Awesome, but is a fairly easy target for a couple of lights since those SRMs are only really good against close, slow targets.
Even without balancing the weapons any further (though a fair amount of that is still needed), tonnage limits are going to basically destroy the current metagame and make something completely new to replace it. It's going to be a lot harder for a lot of people to win when they can't use the old assault-spam technique and instead have to do a lot more working together and playing to the strengths of their respective mechs.
I run an XL engine in my Gauss-Back (HunchbaG? Hunchbauss? Gunchback?) because I stay away from close/mid range engagements and run quickly from one vantage point to another getting sniper shots off.
Otherwise, I can't possibly fathom running an XL on a mech with a giant target plastered on it's side torso and then mixing it up in the field. I'm sure you guys are having success with it, but, man...I don't know.
Also, while I personally think you should just be making mechs and having fun right now (because it's not really an organized team structure), I don't think it's fair to say that those people who are paying attention to the current meta-game, such as it is, and taking advantage of it are "doing it wrong" either. Playing the metagame is a large part of the fun for some people in games.
DietarySupplementStill not approved by the FDADublin, OHRegistered Userregular
edited August 2012
I know usually Atlases are reserved for the derpiest of derps, but I feel I've really learned a thing or two about playing them. The trick isn't to rush in; in fact, your slow speed is your best thing. Let the fast awesomes or dragons make contact, then you show up and gaussgaussgaussgaussgaussgauss.
Of course this works much better with teammates that steal your kills flank your enemy while you have their attention.
Posts
This game makes me hyper excited for Hawken in December.
When you go into configure mech, on the upper right is the mech outline with dots indicating the locations you can place equipment. Clicking on a dot changes the location (you can also just click on the model in the center). In the center to the right of the model is the list of critical slots in that location. Above those it lists the hardpoints in that section. For example 0/1 energy, 1/3 missile. That means you can place up to 1 energy weapon and 3 missile weapons in that location in any combination as long as you have the critical slots and tonnage available. The tonnage and critical slots a weapon or equipment has is listed in the info section for that device. In the list along the right side are the equipment catagories. Click the icon above to choose weapons, ammo, equipment, or armor. Drag what you want out of that list and into the location to a free slot to equip it. Anything in red means it's either too heavy, too many critical slots, or there's not enough hardpoints to be fitted.
Ballistic hardpoints are pretty limited so making a MG boat is not easy to do and isn't very effective since they don't do much against armor and they haven't got the criticals to internals in yet.
You can't, that's probably why you're having a hard time. The hardpoint system explicitly prevents you from stacking large numbers of small weapons. The best you can do in the medium class is 3 machine guns in the Hunchback HBK-4G's right torso, or the Centurion CN9-AH's right arm.
Your issues as a Catapult stem from poor teamwork, you should play with PA players a bit. You need to coordinate your LRM target with people - it'll peel off armor so they can melt through that delicious internal structure. Also they can keep Jenners off your ass. The Founder's Cat is actually poor for LRM boating though, but it can be a powerhouse with 2xSRM6 and 4xMLAS. I run that with an XL285 engine, it's good times. Make sure to check your armor as well, the base loadout is super squishy.
For the Hunchback... the 4G sucks. Remember that you can't facetank an assault mech - you're more maneuverable than they are, use that. Try putting a Gauss rifle in there and sniping a bit. Try different tactics.
Mechs like the Centurion are intended to help support LRM mechs by adding a little LRM firepower and keeping lights away from them, but that almost never happens due to the lack of tonnage limits right now. Also, the huge overabundance of assaults nullifies a lot of the usefulness of LRMs right now; LRMs can do tons of damage to an assault, but there's a lot less usefulness there when a team has another 3-4 assaults as well.
LRMs are going to go way, way up in effectiveness when tonnage limits are put in place, but until then they've got something of the short end of the stick. They can still do loads of damage and be useful, but between the excess of armor on the field and the overabundance of massively-powerful assault arsenals, LRMs really don't get to be as good as they should.
I still can't seem to get behind other mechs as the hunchback. And I tend to get into these weird situations where my torso won't turn quickly enough for circle strafing even against heavy mechs, but my arm reticule is all over the freaking place. Do you guys tend to fight at full throttle? It seems like there's a certain art form to getting behind the Atlas that I haven't been able to figure out yet.
Oh yeah, and while the AC20 does noticeable damage, I tried switching to a AC10 which had something like 4 times the ammo, and I couldn't kill a single Catapult with it. Are the ACs balanced properly? It seems like pound for pound I should just invest in SRMs instead.
Not really. The Hunchback is kinda slow, but very agile. I can quite often get the jump on people easily even with a stock engine, the trick is just using the terrain and paying attention to the fight flow. I'll rarely approach a bigger target than me head-on. Usually I duck out of the fight, swing back around, and hit them from a flanking angle.
Nope. The faster you're going the harder it is to turn so you need to manage your throttle in order to keep from getting away from your target. Once you're setup where you want to be, lowering your throttle will make it easier to stay on a target's ass.
EDIT: My whoring of RAMMING SPEED on the Dragon is starting to get people super salty in games. Best mech evaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Yeah, the ballistic weapons in general are still pretty crappily unbalanced. The gauss rifle does pretty well and the UAC/5 currently has an incomplete feature which makes it crazy good (you can double-fire per single reload with no drawbacks, but they're going to patch in jamming for it at some point). The standard ACs are kinda junk compared to basically everything else, and the machine guns are definitely junk.
The ballistic weapons are in a tough spot because the devs seem pretty reluctant to adjust their damage values, which isn't necessarily a bad idea. However, they've got a crappy damage-per-ton-ammo (SRMs get something like 250 damage per ton, ballistic weapons get something like 150 at best), pretty enormous weight for the damage they deal (4 MLAS deals as much damage as an AC/20, fits on most mechs, never runs out of ammo, takes only 4 crit slots, etc. etc.), huge crit slot costs (AC/20 takes up something like 13-14 crit slots), AND they get hurt really bad by the random firing lag caused by the in-progress netcode.
So far, ballistic weapons have seen 1 second shaved off their firing time (except for the UAC/5) and a 25% boost to their ammo, but they still need a good bit of work.
A fast Hunchback (HunchBlast? LunchFast?) is the best anti-scout platform I've encountered so far. Except for lucky shots from Gaussapults, they're the thing I'm the most wary of when I'm scouting. I've had to bail on many a base cap attempt because there's a fast Hunch on the prowl nearby.
I'm finding ramming lights to be my normal method of dealing with them. It's too fun and I hope that function still exists in the full release.
This is a very scary thought - considering the insane amount of chassis rock you get from landing a single LRM on someone, the idea of them being even more effective should give people pause.
I would really like to know the internal mechanics of deciding how many LRMs in a volley hit - anyone know if they're using some sort of system similar to the TT version where it's a random amount of hits?
Beyond just making people mad, it's really handy for saving the bacon of your teammates. I saved a few LRM boats yesterday just by tackling the mechs going after them.
Pfft, I do plenty fine in it. My loadout gets shit done all ranges and the Dragon's super awesome stock speed makes it really good at flanking and swooping in like the goddamn Batman to save the day.
What are you talking about? The Hunchback can go 120kph, how is that slow at all? Thats one of the fastest boats in the game. Also, I almost always fight at full throttle in one, unless I have perfectly sure there is no one besides the main target that will be shooting at me or I'm fighting 1on1.
He speaks of the stock standard engine 200 hunchback which moves at about 66 KPH, which is kinda slow.
This build is not good. It loses to faster hunchbacks and awesome/atlases. Why would you do that?
Because a stock engine hunchback carries a ton of firepower, is able to mix it up really well thanks to its agility, and not all of us here are horrible people that like abusing the broken as fuck, boring to use Awesome? Besides, once tonnage restriction get put it guys who exclusively whore assault mechs are gonna be hurting because they won't know how to drive the smaller guys properly.
The 4SP and Swayback are both really awesome mechs too.
Because I don't want to die when my RT blows up? And while the AWS-8Q can handle running a standard 325 engine and still be somewhat effective (30 HS is cutting it close, IMO, but YMMV) the other variants really can't. And I avoid putting an XL in an assault mech.
The Lunchback is the only great hunchy, the Munchback is ok too, but has some issues. The other builds are much worse, and theres no reason to use them other than grinding master. The second you give up speed in the hunchy you are playing a bad Awesome, and you should switch. I didn't design the mechs, that's just the way it is.
Wut?
Does the game balance rounds as far as scout/med/heavy like World of Tanks? I've seen some pretty lopsided matches.
The TT version uses something called Battle Value to assess how much a mech is worth on the field. Tonnage, armor, weapons etc are all given a point value and then added up. I hope they decide to implement this as well although I wonder how it will sit with matchmaking. Right now the beta is great because you can get a match instantly. I don't want to know that I'm going to get a faster game if I pick a smaller mech because the numbers work out better.
They need to stay away from pure tonnage as a meter, though. That's very misleading especially when you start getting overlap in the same tonnage number.
I think BV would be the best way to balance, in my honest opinion. But some kind of balancing would be better than none, as it's hard as hell to defeat a team made of 5 Awesome's, specced as laser boats charging straight for the cap point.
It was not... awesome.
Obviously everyone should feel free to play whatever they enjoy, especially in random matches where there are no stakes and opposition will be minimal. If you want to actually compare 'Mechs to each other in terms of their utility in a competitive environment, though, the fact is that the game is currently trending pretty hard towards assaults as the dominant choice for anything that's going slower than 120kph, and towards XL engines on everything in most cases.
On the bright side, the devs have stated pretty strongly that they intend to keep all weight classes viable. The fact that fast Awesomes are competitive with, and maybe even preferred to, Atlases is actually a good sign in my eyes. Although that has a lot to do with their hardpoint layouts as well as their speed and maneuverability, to be fair.
Laser Hunchback and Missile Hunchback respectively. 375 XL and all the small lasers (or SRM-6s, depending) you can fit.
I think we had 6 going at one point.
That was a fun night.
Chicago Megagame group
Watch me struggle to learn streaming! Point and laugh!
I don't agree with much in this thread, but this...This I find to be truth.
Anyone who is giving an actual fuck (outside of fun factor) about this games stats or their "skill" before it receives the "no more wipes" stamp, is a bad person and should feel bad.
The amount of bitching when tonnage limits get put in place is going to be epic, simply because people will actually have to make hard choices regarding their loadout and role instead of just stacking their mech and team with the most weapon-laden mechs they can. An Awesome running 3-4 SRM-6s is pretty much a death sentence to a mixed-loadout Awesome, but is a fairly easy target for a couple of lights since those SRMs are only really good against close, slow targets.
Even without balancing the weapons any further (though a fair amount of that is still needed), tonnage limits are going to basically destroy the current metagame and make something completely new to replace it. It's going to be a lot harder for a lot of people to win when they can't use the old assault-spam technique and instead have to do a lot more working together and playing to the strengths of their respective mechs.
Otherwise, I can't possibly fathom running an XL on a mech with a giant target plastered on it's side torso and then mixing it up in the field. I'm sure you guys are having success with it, but, man...I don't know.
Also, while I personally think you should just be making mechs and having fun right now (because it's not really an organized team structure), I don't think it's fair to say that those people who are paying attention to the current meta-game, such as it is, and taking advantage of it are "doing it wrong" either. Playing the metagame is a large part of the fun for some people in games.
Steam ID: Obos Vent: Obos
Of course this works much better with teammates that steal your kills flank your enemy while you have their attention.